Cord cutters: TV and streaming services race to make it easier to find your next favorite show

Mike Snider | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Samsung's 146-inch 'Wall TV' is coming to a store near you At CES Samsung debuted a real humdinger of a product: a 146-inch modular TV called "The Wall."

LAS VEGAS — Now that the Internet is nearly everyone's favorite TV station, content providers and device makers find themselves catering to consumers' desires for more, better streaming video.

That was abundantly clear here at CES, where the biggest makers of streaming devices rubbed elbows with entertainment and Internet heavyweights such as Time Warner and Verizon, and every TV maker touted even smarter, more connected displays.

For cord cutters, the throngs at the global tech trade show yielded this view of the future:

One stop video shopping

New TVs on display at CES promise smarter on-board apps and better guides to make it easier to find programming you want to watch. Samsung's newest TVs will incorporate its artificial digital assistant Bixby, which you can ask to find movies for you, and a new universal programming guide that learns your viewing preferences.

New TCL Roku 4K TVs, coming this spring, have Roku's streaming system built in, and when you have an antenna connected, the improved guide incorporates any over-the-air TV channels into your guide along with streaming app options.

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Not in the market for a new TV just yet? Channel Master showed off a new small SMARTenna indoor antenna that simplifies the tuning process and, when connected to its new Stream+ streaming device, will add received TV signals into the guide, too. Both the antenna and $99 device, which was announced just before CES, will be available later this month.

Streaming services to partner up

Disney’s acquisition of Fox assets and its planned streaming services will be among the factors forcing some smaller direct-to-consumer services to join with others to survive.

"There is a real opportunity for Disney and Fox to become a real competitor to Netflix and to really reshape the landscape fundamentally, but also for some of the content players to decide on which side they are going to stand," said Fabian Birgfeld, CEO and co-founder of W12 Studios, a U.K.-based digital design company that has worked with CNN, Vevo and Verizon. Birgfeld participated in one of several CES panels about streaming video.

There are more than 200 streaming services now, and obviously some will fall to the wayside. "In five years or so, we will have a "clearer understanding of who’s a platform and who’s a content player," Birgfeld said.

Consumer spending on video streaming services is expected to rise 39% this year to about $13 billion, according to the Consumer Technology Association, the trade group that conducts the CES show. It's the first time the CTA has released such a projection; toss in music streaming and the total rises to $19.5 billion, CTA says.

Talk to the TV

TV makers and streaming media device manufacturers will improve their products to keep you committed. Most streaming players let you use your voice to find some content, but artificial intelligence will become better at helping you find what to watch.

Competitor Roku already lets you use your voice, too, but is developing a voice-activated artificial intelligence to help make the streaming platform easier to use and to add speakers to consumers' Roku TVs, for instance. "We expect voice is going to become more and more of an interface as consumers engage with entertainment around their homes both with speakers and on their TVs," said Mark Ely, Roku's vice president for product management for players and whole home.

Future services will have much more personality, a development designed to enchant subscribers and increase their devotion. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will enable that evolution, but some mash-up of tech with human curation could emerge.

"Netflix serves up just great content, it really does. But there is something soulless at the same time," says Richard Steiner, senior vice president of digital products and services at Turner Classic Movies and FilmStruck, its subscription movie service. "I think there’s going to be some interesting things to happen on the science side."

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Streaming services from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and others have already evolved, along with high-speed broadband Internet connectivity, to deliver dependable programming — except for the occasional content gold rush, such as the season debut of a Game of Thrones episode.

Binge watchers' now have a diet for hits such as The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu), Mindhunter (Netflix) and Transparent (Amazon).

That demand is translating into big audiences for streaming content. And it's rising rapidly.

Hulu, which in May expanded its on-demand video subscription service with more than 50 live channels, announced at CES that it has grown to 17 million subscribers, up 40% from a year ago.

Industry leader Netflix remains the streaming standard-bearer, having swelled from about 35 million U.S. members this time four years ago to about 54 million now in the U.S., and a total of 115 million globally. Amazon doesn't release video figures, but investment research firm Morningstar has estimated there are 79 million subscribers to Amazon Prime, which includes free shipping and free streaming TV episodes and movies.

TV manufacturers and streaming media companies keep upgrading their Internet video features and methods, all to satisfy those abandoning, shunning or shaving the traditional pay TV cord.

"It's a virtuous cycle," said Paul Verna, senior analyst with research firm eMarketer. "It’s really a combination of the content, the technology and consumer behavior."





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Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.