LG’s $1,800 TV for seniors makes misguided assumptions

Further muddying Easy TV’s purported identity: a dedicated AI button on the remote. It seems unlikely that someone who needs their TV to provide near-instant access to technical support needs an AI button.

An easier TV

If OEMs really want to make TVs feel simpler and more familiar to older crowds, they should sell more dumb TVs.

Seniors are definitely streaming, but they’re also the largest remaining demographic of broadcast viewers. In the US, 64 percent of Americans age 65 and older have a cable or satellite subscription, according to Pew Research data.

Senior citizens used dumb TVs for decades. TVs that don’t connect to the Internet can still access streaming services through simple solutions, like streaming sticks or connecting a computer. With a dumb TV, you don’t have to learn how to operate software that varies among TV brands, think about updates, or worry about privacy. Smart TVs introduced concerns about snooping that today’s older TV viewers lived without for years. Dumb TVs could help protect the less informed without them having to decipher lengthy terms written in tiny print.

A dumb TV would be cheaper, too, which would benefit seniors with fixed incomes. Instead, LG is offering an expensive, big-screen smart TV with integrated software that it can monetize.

Yet another angle that a TV for seniors could take, which doesn’t seem prevalent with the Easy TV, is attentiveness to accessibility features that are simple to activate.

That said, many of the features I described could appeal to adults who are under 65. However, TVs aimed at seniors could be lucrative for companies like LG. The Seoul-headquartered company’s translated announcement notes that the population of people age 65 years and older “exceeded 10 million at the end of last year, accounting for 20 percent of the total registered population” in South Korea, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety of South Korea. LG views TVs for seniors as another potential emerging category, similar to its StanByMe line of giant tablets on wheels.

Seniors could benefit more from TVs with familiar interfaces, affordability, and privacy than from a mildly tweaked TV with an upcharge. However, with the amount of money being made through TV software ads and tracking, those traits are of waning interest for OEMs.