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Television has come leaps and bounds from its origins almost 100 years ago. In post-war Britain, there were only 16,000 wealthy families that owned black and white televisions; and it took another 20 years for TV sets to appear in the average home. The first colour picture on TV in the UK was of the live 1967 Wimbledon tournament, but most people had to watch colour through the window in Woolworths!
Now a common feature in 97% of the 28 million homes in Britain today, the TV has solidified itself as essential entertainment technology in the 21st century.
Now we can watch everything in high definition and on demand on our flat screen devices. But what will the TV look like in the future? We are already seeing incredible advancements in this realm, but will the screens we know today look anything like the TV tech of the future?
Here are some of the top predictions for what we can expect.
The remote control was introduced in the 1980s to change the channel, but even now, many standard devices can already be controlled with your voice. With remotes on the way out, the TV of the future won’t even need speech. TVs could be controlled through a chip in the brain or measuring brainwaves instead! Various ideas have been tested out, but none have come to market yet.
The BBC along with This Place created a headset that meant users were able to turn on the TV and select a program using mind control. The likes of Elon Musk are developing tech like ‘Neuralink’ which is a brain-computer interface that allows you to communicate to your devices, which could include your TV.
Beyond this, tech may be developed in which your mood, your recent interactions or behaviours could alter what is played to you. If you are in a volatile or vulnerable state, you could only be shown suitable material to not worsen your mental state, for example. A chip in an under 18-year-old brain could censor all TV for them until they come of age. The potential with mind control telly is infinite!
TV adverts began in 1941 and have been an annoyance to viewers worldwide ever since! Since streaming platforms popped on the scene, the TV license has seen its end and advertisements have had to get cleverer about how they deliver their message to you.
Product placement will become a standard way of advertising products and services. With no adverts in between a show, they will now regularly feature within the show itself. This isn’t new technology, but the ways it will be used will be next level. You may watch a show, see someone drinking a Coca-Cola and then be able to click on it and have it delivered to your seat. The drink may even change from person to person, depending on your preferences for very tailored advertising. As Willy Wonka said, ‘’If they can do it with a photo, why can’t I do it with a bar of chocolate?”.
There are expert predictions suggesting that broadcasting as we know it will change drastically. It isn’t necessarily the death of broadcasting, but the traditional format of a TV license with prime-time telly will be a thing of the past. Whoever owns the content will rule the market: think how Disney has bought up many media companies such as Fox, Sky, National Geographic, Vice, ESPN, Hulu and more! They have secured their place in the future TV markets.
Broadcasters will move away from shows to please the masses, and will focus on demand tailored content instead. Many hit shows, actors or directors may even have their own streaming site. Sign us up to Tarantinoflix ASAP!
Technology usually either grows in size like the average phone screen, or shrinks in size like the computer chip, but TV will likely do both. There may even be a screen that can do both and will be made of an extra flexible material! When greater understanding of quantum physics is reached, we should be able to change the quantum state of our TVs, allowing us to take a whole wall television and shrink it to fit in our suitcase. Can you imagine?
For now, if you’d like a huge TV then there are some out on the market, but I warn you: they are not cheap. You can cover a wall with the $1 million MicroLED LG TV or the BroomX MK Player360 projects videos all around you on walls and ceilings, but the price is not for every budget!
LG’s rollable screen TV currently comes in at almost £100,000! The telly is flexible, which means you can roll it away for storage. Within the decade, these will likely make a common appearance in UK homes.
LG boasts the thinnest TV screen in the world right now, measuring 0.15 inches thick and titled ‘the wallpaper series’. This will continue to be a trend with eventually the screens getting so thin, that they will be undetectable.
TV shows will become more cinematic, with higher budgets going to TV shows to rival films. Many directors with higher budgets will move to small screen productions so we may see some epic and compelling shows from some of our favourite artists without having to go to the cinema.
As well as this, we are likely to see multichoice TV, where you decide the ending of the show. Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch was one of the first TV shows to do this, but this will become more and more popular. Parents can set kid-friendly endings and you could choose your favourite character as the hero!
If all of this sounds so amazing you want to try it now, or so awful you want to have your say, then you have the power to change what TV will become. At People for Research, we work with leading media and broadcasting companies, tech giants and innovative start-ups – and they all need your help and feedback to improve their products. Taking part in paid research, either in an interview or completing a survey, is directly changing how streaming services, TV and media is coming to you!
Here are examples of recent projects we worked on👇
▪️ A recent survey involved watching a TV show whilst using a smart watch to track your heart rate. All the participants had to do was explain why they chose a show and share a little insight as to how it made them feel with help of their heart rate monitor!
▪️ The nation’s favourite broadcaster hosted user research about the emerging technology of conversational chatbots. This technology would mean you could have a natural conversation with your TV to get what you want. A socially engaging experience to help audiences access exactly what they want. Whilst trialling that technology, participants got £50 for the hour to take part!
And that is a wrap on our celebration of World TV Day 2021, which we celebrated in November! You can sign up to take part in TV paid research here. Tell us what you hope to see on the TV of the future. What have we missed?
Sign up with us to hear about all kinds of paid research and testing sessions, or browse our opportunities to find the perfect project for you.