Image source @ Visual China
Text | Spirit Cat Finance
On the subway, people take mobile phones to chase dramas and brush videos, return home to lie on the bed with tablets to watch live broadcasts or movies, more and more people choose to watch videos through mobile devices, and sit in front of the TV to chase dramas and watch movies, which seems to have become a "ritualistic" family activity.
Recently, when talking about the decoration plan of the home, a colleague said that he intends to abandon the traditional design method in the living room decoration and choose the current fashionable "no TV" design scheme.
As mobile phones and computers have become the main channels for modern people to obtain external information, televisions, which were once called the "four big pieces" of the family in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, seem to have become dispensable from the status of "necessities".
On January 18, Aowei Cloud Network, a home appliance research agency, released an annual report, and the retail sales volume of China's color TV market in 2021 was 38.35 million units, down 13.8% year-on-year. Moreover, the "2021 China Young People's Home Life Survey Report" shows that among the TOP10 home appliances that young people are most inclined to discard first when moving, television sets rank first, accounting for up to 25%.
This can't help but raise a question, why do young people now dislike watching TV more and more?
01 Migration of content
Televisions don't sell well, and the reason may have nothing to do with televisions.
Tv itself is only a piece of hardware, and the user's needs to be met by "hardware + content", in this case, the sales of television sets may not only be related to tv, the quality and quantity of TV content also affect the sales of TV sets to a certain extent.
Once CCTV and local satellite TV, it was an important pillar for providing people with information and relaxing entertainment. Perhaps some people remember that my father often watched CCTV-5 sports channels, mothers loved to watch CCTV-8 is a TV drama channel, and children love to watch CCTV-6 movie channels, CCTV-10 science and education channels and CCTV-14 children's channels. And every 7 o'clock in the evening, no matter how you change stations, you can't escape the "encirclement and suppression" of the news network.
At that time, people's entertainment content was limited, and the TV set was like a small magic box, which made us understand the vastness of the world, people would sit in front of the TV set on time because of the regular broadcast program, and every New Year's Day, the family would sit around and watch the Spring Festival Gala.
Times have changed, the emergence of the Internet for people to obtain information to provide more possibilities, cartoons and TV series are no longer missed to wait for replay helplessness, now people can play anytime and anywhere with a variety of mobile devices, but everyone seems to be less interested in any program.
According to CCTV, among the cross-media audiences at home and abroad of the 2022 Spring Festival Gala, 538 million people watched on TV and 758 million people on mobile. More and more people choose to watch the Spring Festival Gala on the mobile terminal, I don't know when to start Chinese New Year's Eve the habit of the family sitting around the TV set is no longer common, and sitting in front of the TV set has become a rather "ritualistic" thing.
The reason for all this is not that the TV has done something wrong, but that the information content has migrated from the TV to the mobile device.
Now asking where people are watching video programs is mostly "Ai You Teng Mang", using mobile phones, tablets and other mobile devices, and everyone's drama chasing scene has changed from the living room at 8:30 every night to the subway and the restaurant for lunch and dinner.
On the list of household expenditures, the annual cable TV fee has become a member recharge record of major video websites; the "set-top box" placed next to the TV set is no longer the same for every household, but a variety of "TV boxes" with small shapes. More and more young people are choosing to watch movies on mobile phones and tablets, televisions have become living room decorations, and non-essential home appliances for workers to rent.
If you ask, "Why do televisions become decorations, can't you cast the screen on the TV?" "That means you may not have tried the screen projection function at all, and the screen projection has not become a bridge between the TV and the mobile device, but has made people more aware of the tearing between the TV and the mobile device in the content."
02 Tearing of the device
Screen projection is not the "savior" of television, but the little Bourgeois who uses television as a "big-screen laborer".
If you try to cast a movie from the mobile phone's "Aiyo Tengmang" client to TV viewing, you will find that the screen projection only provides low-quality options, if you want to get high-definition picture quality, you need to be on the TV side, and download the corresponding client to achieve it.
But after downloading the client on the TV, you will find that the content that originally only needs the mobile app members can watch, if you want to watch on the TV, you actually need to recharge the TV member, the membership rights of device A and device B are not the same, just like the human tragedy and joy are not the same, you never know when you will step on the trap of the next Internet game.
The fundamental reason why video app members have to charge separately on the TV side and the mobile phone side is that the two do not share a system, just like landlines and mobile phones, and the cost of the two is not universal.
This phenomenon arises because TV members must follow the requirements of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television 's Requirements for the Operation and Management of Institutions Holding Internet Television Licenses' (Guangbanfa Net Zi [2011] No. 181), and the Internet TV content service platform can only access the Internet TV integration platform approved by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
But just like the fixed line and mobile phone and broadband to form a charging package, the witty video platform in order to help users avoid tedious activation steps, launched a "mobile device + TV" can enjoy the privilege of VVIP, but the fee is more expensive.
For example, iQIYI launched the "Star Diamond VIP Member" on the basis of "Golden VIP Member", gold members can only be used on mobile phones, tablets and computers, but the more expensive Star Diamond members also support the TV side to enjoy the membership rights on the basis of the former, which seems to open up the membership rights and interests of the mobile terminal and the TV side, in fact, it is playing the routine of bundled sales.
The existence of screen projection has not helped the TV to return to the status of "the head of the family", but has made people more aware of the convenience of mobile devices. In fact, the idea of "Aiyou Tengmang" to play TV users can still be understood, after all, TV is the hometown of dramas and variety shows, but in order to attract more users, douyin, kuaishou and Huya these "foreigners" have also cut into the tv users' big screen cake through live screen projection.
Nowadays, the traffic of short video and live broadcast has also entered the stock stage from the incremental period, and the short video and live broadcast platforms that are in the growth dilemma have started the idea of TV users, and the live broadcast platform Huya has launched the TV version of the application "Cloud Audiovisual Tiger E-sports", and Douyin and Kuaishou have also added screen projection functions to the mobile live broadcast interface.
Compared with the small screen of the mobile terminal, the large screen on the TV side can bring users a more "immersive" viewing experience, and from the perspective of user experience-oriented thinking, if it can be seamlessly connected in a fixed scene, the use experience of the large screen is obviously better than that of the small screen, which is also the reason for the layout of the TV side application of the live broadcast platform.
But after the actual experience, the author found that compared to watching on the mobile phone and flat board, I always feel that the live viewing experience of the screen projection to the TV end is a little less flavorful, the reason is that the anchor did not realize until the anchor asked the fans to brush him some free small gifts, although it is true that the visual experience of watching the live broadcast on the big screen is better, but the live broadcast without gift tips and bullet screens can still be called live broadcasts?
At this moment, users may be able to understand that the difference between mobile and TV is not just the size of the screen, but two completely different experiences, and the tearing feeling of this content viewing experience makes it impossible to return to the embrace of the TV for a while.
03 The dilemma of technology
In addition to the poor experience of content leading to the fall of tv, the slow change of hardware technology is also an important reason for the gradual loss of TV.
Compared with the replacement of chips, the iteration speed of TV technology is almost stagnant. In the case of the same price, the chip of three years ago may have lagged behind a lot today, but the TV of three years ago is placed today, the clarity is still not lagging behind a lot, compared with today's TV sets of the same gear, the reason why the current product is better than the product experience of three years ago is mostly the credit of the chip.
Looking back at the history of TV technology, we will find that there are few revolutionary technological changes with disruptive significance, which can be simply summarized as "CRT rear projection PDPLCDOLED".
In the CRT era, at this stage, the television set moved from black and white to the color TV era. The advantages of the product are high brightness, good contrast, bright colors, and the disadvantage is that the fuselage is bulky, it is difficult to be thin and lightweight, and the technology limits the screen size can not be large.
In the era of rear projection, the TV set with projection behind it is a television development system that puts the screen and the projection system into one under the pretext of projection and reflection principle. The advantage is that the size can be easily achieved more than 43 inches of large screen, the emergence of the rear projection TV to make up for the size of the CRT era TV size problem, but due to the thickness of the fuselage, heavy weight, short life and other reasons, after experiencing a short period of glory also fell behind the curtain of the times.
Then there is the modern television technology in the general sense, plasma TV, also known as PDP TV, almost at the same stage of the birth of LCD TV, LCD TV technology is the current mainstream "LCD TV".
As early as 2005, the technical dispute between plasma and liquid crystal, from the perspective of market share, LCD TVs defeated plasma TVs to become the mainstream of the times, and many people's TVs at home are still LCD TVs.
Until the emergence of OLED technology in recent years, TV technology has gone one step further. But in fact, PDP can be comparable to OLED in contrast and color, but OLED display products can provide display density and viewing angle are higher than PDP technology, so OLED TV is the current development trend of the TV market.
However, due to the limitation of OLED TV production costs, the market price of 10,000 yuan makes consumers can only sigh, and because technological progress has not yet undergone qualitative changes, OLED TVs and LED TVs are almost 95 products and 90 products, and most ordinary consumers' choice is still LED TVs.
The dilemma of slow change of TV technology has made consumers turn their attention to large-screen alternatives such as projectors, and under the influence of content and technology restrictions, people have begun to abandon TVs to choose other products.
How to retain young people who choose "no TV design" is a problem that needs to be solved urgently in the tv industry.