Google in a TV crisis. He had to turn off the TV app
Google had to disable its Google TV Freeplay service. The free TV channel directory did not work as expected. The company still has a lot to learn from cable companies.
Google offers free TV
Most of you probably don’t know this, but in your home market, in the USA, Google TV devices provide access to completely free TV. This is real competition for paid TV packages, because Google already has a library over 150 channels. As you can easily guess, the profitability of the service is based on advertising, which can additionally be personalized, unlike classic linear television, which displays the same thing to everyone.
Recently, Google has significantly improved its service by introducing the Google TV Freeplay application, which brought a useful live guide, similar to those we know from cable or satellite TV offers.
Google TV Freeplay was supposed to be a relief, but it turned out to be a disaster
It seems that Google miscalculated the quality of the new application. Users began to report en masse technical problems, application freezes and shutdowns, which in practice made it impossible to use it. The problems turned out to be so big that… Google finally decided to withdraw the application from the store and disable Google TV Freeplay.
While rolling out the new Google TV Freeplay guide, we discovered an issue that may be increasing crashes for some users. We have disabled access to the new guide on affected devices until a fix is available. The fix will begin rolling out soon, and the updated guide will be available on all Google TV devices in the coming months
– said a Google spokesman
The application may therefore return soon, but possibly without a live guide. Users will have to wait a few more months for the latter. Until then, they will still be able to watch free TV, but with a rather tedious channel search, similar to YouTube’s video search engine.
Google’s plans for expansion into other global markets are not yet knownbut once the platform overcomes the technical problems, perhaps free TV will also come to Europe. He would be a very interesting player who could refresh the European offer a bit. After all, competitors not only display ads, but also charge monthly fees and would probably have to change their business model.
