A Socio-technical Analysis on Factors Affecting the Adoption of Smart TV in Korea

Abstract

Smart TV has been highlighted as a new platform of broadcasting, powered for the last five years by its own application store as well as by internet-based contents. However, recently, smart TVs performance in the pay TV market has been below expectations. In the socio-technical view, this paper investigates three aspects surrounding smart TV: bundling as a market competition strategy

services using technological features represented by N-screen

and consumer attributes, including personal innovativeness and demographics. The results show that the bundles with IPTV have a lock-in effect, while other pay TV services do not, indicating that bundling by communications service providers is a more effective strategy to keep market share away from new entrants. Policy makers only consider competition among incumbents, neglecting the entrance of new service providers, like over-the-top service providers. Therefore, bundling should be evaluated in terms of an entry barrier. Smart TV doesnt work as a platform because the adoption of smart TV has no influence on the watching of N-screen broadcasting services on TV. The positive effects of personal innovativeness and of household demographics are confirmed. There are implications that the new technology alone cannot encourage lean forward activity on TV. Managers should focus on what consumers expect from smartness, and develop contents for the smart TV as a home appliance.