It’s been quite a few years since WWE has been on the forefront of pop culture, but now, possibly because of a forced hand, it once again finds itself blazing trails. Its newest TV show, NXT, a reality-type show (with minimal wrestling, of course) that debuted last winter, will be leaving TV altogether and heading to the Internet. (Tuesdays at 10pm, for the record.) WWE says it’s the first TV show to leave TV for the Internet, something that I wouldn’t even be able to verify, but it does speak to a broader move in the world of entertainment.
Greg Steen on 20 Mar 12The remote control must die; but what's next? One company at the apex of that question is Philips, which, unbeknownst to many onlookers, already makes remote controls for an array of TV makers, set-top box vendors and pay-TV operators like BSkyB. Philips now offers its own Wiimote-like gesture stick to screen makers like HP; (NYSE: HPQ) a motion-sensitive, qwerty-equipped uWand; candybars with integrated laptop trackpads and, yes, plain 'ol candybars for internet TV operators who still want them. All of this means the TV input segment is about to embark upon the same kind of innovative period of disruption and competing standards that the TV space is now wrestling with and which the internet itself before it first unleashed.
