Companies That Will Fix the Flagging TV Market By 2013

You would think convincing people to buy televisions would be easy.
Manufacturers like Sony (NYSE: SNE ) and retailers like Best Buy (NYSE: BBY )
are facing consumers that are only spending on budget-priced sets, meaning what
sales they do make are worth less. An August report from research group Quixel
said LCD TV sales declined 3% during the second quarter and revenue stayed
relatively flat at $3.8 billion for the quarter. The value of LCD sets, however,
fell 16% year over year. By the end of the year, DisplaySearch expects the
entire industry to ship just 248 million televisions worldwide almost flat with
2010s 247 million. What is going to get consumers buying televisions again? It
isnt 3D TV consumers have spoken on that technology . Is it Internet-connected
smart TVs? The technology seems close to capturing attention, but its still far
away from mass success. Connected sets made up 21% of all television sales in
2010 , but nearly half of owners dont use the features. Chipmaker Intel (NASDAQ:
INTC ) has decided to stop developing smart TV technology altogether , choosing
instead to focus on popular smartphones and tablets. But it might be those
devices that ultimately revitalize the television industry. Sony, Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL ), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ) and Motorola Mobility (NYSE: MMI ) are just a few
of the companies working fast to meld their mobile and television businesses
into cohesive wholes. Google attempted to kick-start the smart television
industry last year with Google TV , an operating system for smart TVs made by
Sony. Apple, too, tried to capitalize on new technology last fall, introducing a
new model of Apple TV set-top box that allowed video to stream from the iPad to
televisions via an app called AirPlay. The thinking was that, with consumers
increasingly supporting streaming television businesses like Netflix (NASDAQ:
NFLX ) and Hulu, they would be drawn to having those services stand alongside
standard television options in a living room setup. The problem is that the
technology to hook consumers wasnt in place yet. Google and Sonys interface was
unwieldy, and content providers like News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS ) and Disney (NYSE:
DIS ) blocked the device from accessing a good deal of streaming content. While
consumers flocked to the iPad, they remained indifferent to Apple; Apple has
sold nearly 29 million iPads but just 2.3 million Apple TVs since 2010.