You’ve probably seen this famous graph that breaks out various categories of inflation, showing labor-intensive services getting more expensive during the 21st century and manufactured goods getting less expensive.
Also relevant: modern TVs are large ad display and consumer behavior tracking machines which only incidentally can be used to show actual content. Proof: just monitor what the typical TV does once you connect it to the network.
The revenue from selling this mountain of data is believed to be higher than that of the actual sale (this alone is a major reason for the industry's secretiveness).
Oh yeah, not to forget the "if you use this thing to sign up to Splatify or Netfrix or Dissney- or BittenFruit or …, the manufacturer / reseller / bloatware installer gets a kickback".
That's the one thing that stands out to me with the price of TVs - they're now a loss-leader like an Xbox or PS5 were. Instead of the games being the money makers, we have "Roku City" which is plastered with billboards. I'm not even sure if I can even buy a non "smart" TV filled with bloatware and advertisements for the dozen different streaming platforms that are now available, costing more than cable ever did!
A cursory look at Best Buys website, for 55" TVs there is 186 options. Filtered for "non smart" there are only 3 options, all listed as "Commercial" TVs. There are over 50 options under $500, and surprisingly 19 in the $2k range. The 3 non smart are $999, $947, and $510. So I have to imagine the smart functionality would lend to the lower cost.
One manufacturer said they would have to stop selling TVs if they didn't have the subsidies for the button presets on the remote. Netflix etc. That's why a lot of newer, cheaper models have more preset buttons. (Sorry I can't remember which company said that).
Anecdotally I've heard it's big business; the big streaming platforms have dedicated sales teams to get their buttons on the remote. Nice profit center for the TV manufacturers if they can get it.
Perfect timing to find this in my inbox this morning. Was just discussing last night that my family bought their first LCD TV (43”) for $1,500 and yesterday I purchased a 58” for the inflation equivalent of $215. Remarkable.
Don't forget that from 2003 - 2025, that's roughly 9 generations of Moore's law (30-mo per generation), improving the Television CPU by 2x each generation. So the CPU that powers the Television is 512x "better" (faster, smaller, cheaper) than it was in 2003, if it had the same complexity. But, we went from 720p to 4K displays which means 9x more pixels, so the CPU would be roughly 50x faster/cheaper (per pixel). The last ~12 years, CPUs have been getting smaller, not faster. The last 5 years, they stopped getting cheaper - just smaller.
It is theorized that 8K TVs will not be a thing because the power consumption is no longer scaling down to allow 4x the pixels. Most European countries are currently banning / restricting 8K televisions to save energy. So these improvements are coming to an end, now.
No doubt the panel is the largest part of the cost of a TV. The rest of it has gotten cheaper as well. TVs used to be build with all separate components (tubes, transistors, resistors, etc. ) all wired up on circuit boards. They also used several high voltages requiring heavy transformers.
The rise of China in both LCD TVs and Solar Panels is likely more than a coincidence. Subsidized Chinese manufacturing and retaliatory tariffs can really cause havoc to markets.
A friend used to be pretty high up with Philips - one thing I'd be interested to track is reliability. He mentioned how he and some fellow engineers still have some older HD prototype models at their houses (these guys retired like 10 years ago btw).
Couldn't imagine these contemporary cheaper models holding out very long after warranty these days.
Still an overall win for TV buyers considering how much the price has fallen TBF.
See my response above. Improvements to the CPU / Television circuit are nearly at an end. Only the glass / display can be cost-reduced further. It's why laptops and GPUs are very expensive this year. Only the size is scaling down on Integrated Circuits (Moore's Law). The cost is not scaling down, and the performance is not scaling up.
Great piece. It's very funny that Best Buy was using the Rolling Stones in their ads 23 years ago, and the Stones may end up lasting longer than Best Buy.
I also now know why you can't see an LCD screen while wearing polarized sunglasses!
Also relevant: modern TVs are large ad display and consumer behavior tracking machines which only incidentally can be used to show actual content. Proof: just monitor what the typical TV does once you connect it to the network.
The revenue from selling this mountain of data is believed to be higher than that of the actual sale (this alone is a major reason for the industry's secretiveness).
Oh yeah, not to forget the "if you use this thing to sign up to Splatify or Netfrix or Dissney- or BittenFruit or …, the manufacturer / reseller / bloatware installer gets a kickback".
That's the one thing that stands out to me with the price of TVs - they're now a loss-leader like an Xbox or PS5 were. Instead of the games being the money makers, we have "Roku City" which is plastered with billboards. I'm not even sure if I can even buy a non "smart" TV filled with bloatware and advertisements for the dozen different streaming platforms that are now available, costing more than cable ever did!
A cursory look at Best Buys website, for 55" TVs there is 186 options. Filtered for "non smart" there are only 3 options, all listed as "Commercial" TVs. There are over 50 options under $500, and surprisingly 19 in the $2k range. The 3 non smart are $999, $947, and $510. So I have to imagine the smart functionality would lend to the lower cost.
Excellent piece. Thanks for the considerable work that went into producing it.
Loved this. The mother-glass scaling point is such a clean “batch size isn’t always evil” counterexample.
One manufacturer said they would have to stop selling TVs if they didn't have the subsidies for the button presets on the remote. Netflix etc. That's why a lot of newer, cheaper models have more preset buttons. (Sorry I can't remember which company said that).
Anecdotally I've heard it's big business; the big streaming platforms have dedicated sales teams to get their buttons on the remote. Nice profit center for the TV manufacturers if they can get it.
Perfect timing to find this in my inbox this morning. Was just discussing last night that my family bought their first LCD TV (43”) for $1,500 and yesterday I purchased a 58” for the inflation equivalent of $215. Remarkable.
Pardon the pun in the last sentence.
In 2001, I went to CES and was amazed at a 10 inch Sony OLED TV. $20,000. And today, you get 100x more area for 0.1x of that price.
I have some professional history with displays. Always wanted that OLED. alas. Now mini QLED seems attractive.
Excellent article.
Classic example of capitalism creating abundance with large markets.
The time price has fallen exponentially.
It only cost China about $10 to make an i-phone.
Don't forget that from 2003 - 2025, that's roughly 9 generations of Moore's law (30-mo per generation), improving the Television CPU by 2x each generation. So the CPU that powers the Television is 512x "better" (faster, smaller, cheaper) than it was in 2003, if it had the same complexity. But, we went from 720p to 4K displays which means 9x more pixels, so the CPU would be roughly 50x faster/cheaper (per pixel). The last ~12 years, CPUs have been getting smaller, not faster. The last 5 years, they stopped getting cheaper - just smaller.
It is theorized that 8K TVs will not be a thing because the power consumption is no longer scaling down to allow 4x the pixels. Most European countries are currently banning / restricting 8K televisions to save energy. So these improvements are coming to an end, now.
No doubt the panel is the largest part of the cost of a TV. The rest of it has gotten cheaper as well. TVs used to be build with all separate components (tubes, transistors, resistors, etc. ) all wired up on circuit boards. They also used several high voltages requiring heavy transformers.
"on display here" bravo
The rise of China in both LCD TVs and Solar Panels is likely more than a coincidence. Subsidized Chinese manufacturing and retaliatory tariffs can really cause havoc to markets.
A friend used to be pretty high up with Philips - one thing I'd be interested to track is reliability. He mentioned how he and some fellow engineers still have some older HD prototype models at their houses (these guys retired like 10 years ago btw).
Couldn't imagine these contemporary cheaper models holding out very long after warranty these days.
Still an overall win for TV buyers considering how much the price has fallen TBF.
Good article! Is the price likely to continue falling by a lot, do you think?
See my response above. Improvements to the CPU / Television circuit are nearly at an end. Only the glass / display can be cost-reduced further. It's why laptops and GPUs are very expensive this year. Only the size is scaling down on Integrated Circuits (Moore's Law). The cost is not scaling down, and the performance is not scaling up.
Great piece. It's very funny that Best Buy was using the Rolling Stones in their ads 23 years ago, and the Stones may end up lasting longer than Best Buy.
I also now know why you can't see an LCD screen while wearing polarized sunglasses!