A senior executive from a major consumer electronics retailer has said that despite his company investing “significantly” in 3D TV marketing, the technology is a “flop”.
“The fad is over. The early adopters have purchased and they are far from happy and consumers have stopped coming into stores to look at a 3D TV,” they said.
“The 3D buzz has gone and we are now back selling TVs that include 3D, Internet TV and 2D. We are also getting a lot of demand for Telstra’s T Box; this has been created because of their extensive marketing,” the executive said.
This week the Australian Communications and Media Authority said that testing of 3D television in Australia – which included 3D broadcasts of the State of Origin Rugby League matches and the 2010 soccer World Cup – had ended, and there’ll be no more broadcasts this year.
In a statement on its Web site, ACMA said it had only authorised trials for two months which ended on Monday, as the digital TV channels that were used had only been available on a temporary basis.
Don’t trash your 3D glasses just yet, however. ACMA says it is now considering applications for a further tranche of short-term free-to-air trials and expects to release a paper “in the next few months” on the future of 3D trials.
According to retail sources the next big thing is IPTV.
Ben Kinealy, the head of IPTV, said that Telstra is currently talking to several major retailers about their T Box offering.
“We believe that this is an easy solution for retailers to sell. On the upside we can deliver over 1,300 movies and once a consumer has experienced our service we believe that they will keep coming back to it because it is an extremely easy way to get access to movies”.
“Several TV brands are now selling TVs with IP access, the big benefit unlike 3D TV is that we can deliver a 24/7 stream of content that is growing every week”.
