Good News If You Have A Sony TV And Were Hoping It Would Become Less Useful For No Reason
from the you-don't-own-what-you-buy dept
If you own one of the Sony Bravia lines of televisions (like I do) and were hoping that the expensive television would suddenly become slightly less functional for no good reason, I have some good news for you.
Sony just announced that the company is making adjustments that will reduce the usefulness and efficiency of watching over-the-air (OTA) broadcasts with an antenna (something many still do in order to “cut the cord,” but still watch local sports broadcasts). According to the Sony announcement, the TV’s internal guide for watching live OTA simply won’t work as well anymore:
“The changes primarily target the program guide functionality for over-the-air antenna TV channels received via the ATSC tuner. After the cutoff date, program information may fail to display on certain channels, limiting the guide’s usefulness for planning viewing schedules. Users will often see listings only for channels they have recently watched, rather than a comprehensive overview of available broadcasts. Additionally, channel logos that previously appeared in the guide will disappear, and any thumbnail images accompanying program descriptions will no longer load or show.”
Many of the TVs being impacted are several thousand-dollar televisions, including the 2025 BRAVIA 8 II (XR80M2) and BRAVIA 5 (XR50), and the 2024 BRAVIA 9 (XR90), BRAVIA 8 (XR80), and BRAVIA 7 (XR70).
Sony didn’t specify why it’s making several-thousand-dollar televisions slightly less useful, but as always it’s about money. Many companies are keen to direct consumers to their (or their own) ad-based streaming alternatives to live OTA broadcasts, which are easier to monitor and monetize through surveillance. As Ars Technica posits Sony is also just likely cutting costs:
“Sony’s plan to remove some TV guide and menu features may be aimed at reducing costs and burden associated with features that typically depend on backend data services. Things like channel logos and enhanced metadata often require licensing agreements and the use of third-party electronic program guide data providers and metadata aggregators.”
Again, some of these sets (especially of the larger screen sizes) can run upwards of $3000 to $4000. You don’t typically expect products that expensive to suddenly become less useful. Or perhaps you do, if you’ve watched repeatedly how you no longer actually own the products you buy, which can be routinely downgraded (or bricked entirely) with a firmware update out of the blue.
Filed Under: bravia, broadcasts, channel guide, enshittification, hardware, smart tv, software, streaming, televisions, tv, tv guide, update
Companies: sony
Comments on “Good News If You Have A Sony TV And Were Hoping It Would Become Less Useful For No Reason”
time to cut the (not so) smart tv cord!
i got one of them so called (not so) smart TV’s. and i really did try to make make it work the way i wanted it to! was even able to side load app’s on the side! BUT!!! when it came time for any of them fancy add blockers! NOPE! NADA! DOSE NOT COMPUTE! or the famous “sorry dave. i can not do that!” so then it was just used for the free air TV. that didn’t last too much longer after that! something about too many ADs and reruns! SO….now it no longer is allowed anywhere near WIFI or the interwebs! i now have a real TV box on it! think kodi box on steroids! it’s a raspberry PI with all the ad blocker i want! i now have pure 98% ad free TV! that other 2% is just (youtube) CH host doing ad’s for there sponsor! and as often see here! amazon prime garbage and there shitification of ads! got that ad blocker too! NO MORE ADs!
I do, because I’ve been paying attention to the television market over the last decade or so. Or more generally, the market for “things, other than general-purpose computers, that connect to the internet”.
Note that Karl’s summary is wrong:
But the linked story says something different: “These adjustments stem from Sony’s ongoing efforts to manage backend services and data feeds that support enhanced guide features on its Google TV-powered BRAVIA lineup.”
In other words, it’s not an internal guide, but a client for some service most buyers probably didn’t know about. Blurring the line between device features and server features is part of the problem; “program guide functionality for over-the-air antenna TV channels received via the ATSC tuner” makes it seem like maybe the guide is received over the tuner, but it’s apparently not.
Wikipedia actually says (without citation, on the “datacasting” page) that the FCC requires each station to send an electronic program guide via ATSC. Other services such as TV Guide Plus (now defunct) were transmitted similarly. So it’d be reasonable to expect that’s where the data was coming from. Had people known it depended on Sony to continue running a server forever, they’d might’ve guessed how it would end.
Re:
Sony’s actual announcement, on the other hand, places all changes explicitly under the label “Antenna TV channels (ATSC)”.
So on the one hand, we have two contradictory statements made by a self-professed expert cord-cutter, and on the other hand we have Sony themselves.
Re: Re:
I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at. Sony has correctly categorized it (here’s an archive.org link to their announcement), but has left the page vague enough so as not to say what’s really going on.
It is a “[Change] related to the TV Guide” with respect to “Antenna TV channels (ATSC)”, but nothing on the page says the guide data is coming via ATSC; the only hint about its source is that they don’t say the feature loss will be tied to a firmware update, which it would be if they were removing an ATSC reception feature. However, they don’t say anything about an internet service either.
As for cost savings, I don’t know much about that, but if channels are demanding payment from Sony for what are essentially advertisements for those channels—plus data they might be legally obligated to publish—that’s kind of fucked up, too. Still, Sony could’ve told them to fuck off right away, and not provided or advertised features they were not willing to maintain.
Bad news if you were hoping to avoid watching Fox news OTA? 🙂
checks TV Brand Uhhh. Looks like an LG I guess?
I certainly didn’t buy it because of any particular animus towards sony, just… happened to be the brand that fell into my lap I guess. I only use it to watch Blu-ray movies and it’s linked to a digital antenna but I don’t even watch broadcast TV, so I’m not entirely sure why I did that.
Boycott Sony
Boycott everything from Sony. Starting in the 1990s, everything they’ve made is anti consumer in some way, some worse than others, but always enshittified. Also boycott their media holdings.
Remember the Sony root hack they shipped on music CDs? Yeah, that Sony.
You can give this stuff up, you know
I haven’t possessed a TV since 1989, nor watched TV in other ways. Every year, that looks a better and better decision.
Re:
See also: (Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn’t Own A Television)[https://web.archive.org/web/20260324212758if_/https://theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-televisi-1819565469/]
Hoping we can still get KQED
If it turns out KQED public TV, San Francisco area, cannot be found that will turn our one Bravia TV into recyclable junk.
Bravo Sony! Not.
I literally put my glass teat (thank you Harlan Eliison for that description of TV) out on the nature strip 16 years ago and have never looked back.
None of my TVs are hooked to the internet. I do not trust companies that make TVs to not put in spyware or other junk. My TVs are just dumb terminals for my Apple TVs or game systems.