Why the future of TV will be won at the experience layer
The TV and streaming industry has reached a point of maturity. In many markets, distribution is no longer the hard part. The real challenge is what comes next.
As competition increases and margins tighten, success depends less on how much content you can deliver, and more on how effectively viewers can find value in it. For OTT services, telcos and pay-TV operators alike, user experience has moved from surface-level design to strategic infrastructure.
Several structural and technological forces are converging to accelerate this shift. Taken together, they point to one clear conclusion: the next phase of growth will be defined by those who treat UX as a long-term capability, not a short-term project.
1. UX is now a primary driver of retention and ARPU
Viewers today are not short of content or services to subscribe to. They are short of time and patience.
As subscription stacking becomes the norm, friction in content discovery has a direct impact on engagement and churn. Recent research from Gracenote shows just how fragile that moment of choice has become:
- Viewers now spend around 14 minutes on average searching for something to watch.
- 19% abandon a session entirely if they cannot find something quickly, rising to 29% among 18–24 year-olds.
- Almost half of viewers say they would consider cancelling a service if finding content feels too difficult.
At the same time, second-screen behaviour has become deeply embedded. YouGov data shows that in markets including the US, UK, Australia and India, the majority of viewers use their mobile device while watching TV “very” or “fairly” often. That is a clear signal of distraction, but also of opportunity.
For operators and content owners, UX now plays a dual role:
- Reducing churn by lowering friction and keeping users engaged in a distracting world.
- Increasing ARPU by making additional content, bundles or upgrades feel relevant rather than intrusive.
This is also where AI is starting to change expectations. Natural language voice search, semantic discovery and more context-aware recommendations are moving from pilots into live deployments. Operators such as Telenet, Ziggo and Sunrise have already introduced AI-powered discovery features.
The challenge is not simply adding these capabilities, but rolling them out consistently, across devices, especially different brands of Smart TV - without creating a fragmented experience that leaves some of your customers feeling left behind.
This is why many product teams are investing in shared UX foundations that allow advanced discovery and AI-driven features to be rolled out seamlessly across devices, rather than launched as isolated experiments.
2. Smart TVs have become the primary battleground
The centre of gravity has shifted decisively to internet-delivered content and viewing on the big screen.
In the US, streaming now accounts for 44.8% of total TV viewing, surpassing broadcast and cable combined (Nielsen, June 2025). In Europe, the Nordics offer a strong leading indicator, with streaming revenues continuing to grow while traditional TV declines, and on an average day, 70% of 15-74 years old watch online video day (Mediavision, December 2025).
Meanwhile, data from NPAW suggest Smart TVs now account for 69% of VoD viewing and 87% of linear TV viewing in North America. For most households, the Smart TV has become the default gateway to video, while set-top boxes are steadily declining in strategic importance (NPAW, August 2025).
For operators and OTT services, this fundamentally changes where experience is won or lost. The living room screen is no longer an extension of another platform. It is the platform.
This shift is pushing operators to adopt delivery strategies that treat Smart TV platforms as a priority, supported by tooling that makes multi-TV brand deployment manageable at scale.
3. OS fragmentation is permanent, and getting worse
If Smart TVs are the battleground, fragmentation is the terrain. Multiple operating systems, SDKs and hardware capabilities coexist, each evolving at its own pace. New Smart TV platforms and OS variants continue to emerge, while existing ones add proprietary features that are difficult to replicate elsewhere.
This fragmentation is not a temporary phase. It is structural, and it is getting more complex over time.
The impact is felt directly by customers. Feature inconsistency creates confusion and frustration. A household where one TV supports advanced voice search and another does not will quickly become a support problem - even if the underlying cause is technical.
For product and UX leaders, this means that abstraction and cross-platform consistency are no longer an engineering nice-to-have. They are essential to protect brand trust and deliver innovation at speed, without increasing operational risk.
In a permanently fragmented ecosystem, standardized development frameworks are becoming essential to maintain a consistent user experience without multiplying cost and complexity.
4. Super-aggregation returns, driven by ARPU goals
Bundling is back at the center of operator strategy, but for different reasons than in the past. As standalone subscriptions multiply, telcos and pay-tv operators are increasingly positioning themselves as aggregators. By integrating third-party services such as Netflix, Disney+ and others into a single interface, they aim to:
- Increase ARPU through broader propositions.
- Reduce churn by making the platform harder to replace.
- Simplify the customer relationship around billing and discovery.
Industry analysis suggests that subscriptions purchased through bundles and aggregators are becoming a significant force in mature markets. Omdia predicts that by 2028, almost 25% of online video subscriptions globally will come via telco bundling – up from ~20% today. Large operators are actively investing in aggregation platforms, not just commercial partnerships.
However, aggregation only delivers value if the UX supports it. Surfacing content from multiple providers without bias, clutter or confusion is a design challenge as much as a commercial one.
We have seen this first-hand while supporting a leading European telco that launched a fully STB-free experience across major Smart TV platforms – LG, Samsung, and Hisense during 2025. The technical achievement in offering a STB-like experience without an STB was significant, but the real success came from designing an interface that made aggregation feel intuitive rather than overwhelming.
As aggregation strategies evolve, success increasingly depends on a flexible UX layer that can surface content from multiple providers while adapting quickly to new commercial models.
5. Accessibility shifts from compliance to competitive advantage
Accessibility is often discussed in regulatory terms, but its impact on UX goes far beyond compliance. While the EU has led the way with formal requirements introduced in 2025, broader regulatory and societal pressure is building in other regions. Even where accessibility is not yet mandated, expectations are rising among users, platform owners and partners.
The most forward-looking teams now treat accessibility as a core dimension of product quality. Designing for clarity, flexibility and inclusivity improves experiences for everyone, not just those with specific needs.
It also reduces long-term risk. Retrofitting accessibility into complex, fragmented interfaces is costly and slow. Building it into the UX foundation from the start is both more efficient and more future-proof.
Building accessibility into shared UI components and design systems from the outset allows teams to scale across platforms without turning compliance into an ongoing operational burden.
UX as long-term infrastructure: A strategic decision for 2026 and beyond
Across all these forces, a common theme emerges. UX is no longer just about visual design or usability testing. It is infrastructure. It determines how quickly new capabilities can be launched, how consistently they can be delivered across platforms, and how effectively teams can respond to changing customer expectations.
As the industry continues to evolve, the organisations that invest in strong, scalable UX foundations will be best placed to innovate without fragmentation, grow without complexity, and deliver value without unnecessary cost.
If you are rethinking how your video experiences scale across platforms, this is a conversation worth having with our experts.