The problem these days is consumers have more viewing options than ever before. Hundreds upon hundreds of television channels on cable or satellite, video on demand and streaming services have increased television options to the point where the content discovery has become seriously problematic. The consumer surfs through all of the content choices now available with a click or scroll, managed by no more than a few rudimentary on-screen graphical interfaces. Despite the evolution of video content and television technology, the industry hasn’t addressed how to help search and discovery functionality keep up with the advancements. A new approach is needed.

Most people have experienced the problem and just accepted it. Take the horrors of the dreaded ‘letter grid’ as an example. It takes so long to type out the letters for search and find anything that users often don’t even bother. How long can this continue?

A new wave of ‘Over-The-Top’ services like Netflix, driven by advances in user interface thinking from the web industry, have tried to address the search problem by shifting the discovery experience towards a recommendations-oriented approach. Hey, progress! However, the experience can still be far from rewarding, many times leading to mindless scrolling through movie posters in a fruitless search for something engaging to watch.

Another problem with these functionalities is that content recommendations are based heavily on past viewing habits. So if your six-year-old pulls a Disney show marathon, you’d better prepare to be inundated with recommendations for princess movies and wacky kids’ shows.

The problem of content discovery experience has been known for some time now and many operators and manufacturers have made attempts to solve this problem. Samsung made headlines recently for the disastrous way they tried to address the issue. The company launched a voice-automated television earlier this year that pulled viewers’ spoken commands into the cloud, where an algorithm analyzed the data to, say, provide search results or more accurate content recommendations.

Clearly, the folks at Samsung didn’t think this one through. They weren’t just collecting the information provided during the customer’s search – they were recording and collecting everything that was said within microphone shot. Everything. Sure, their technology supposedly sorted the wheat from the chaff to disregard any irrelevant data, but the information had already been uploaded to the cloud. Understandably, the public was a little miffed when they discovered that Samsung was recording their every conversation. Whoops.

The Samsung situation is a clear example of the interesting paradigm shift happening in content search and discovery right now. The more personal data a platform can collect, the more relevant its recommendations can be – but where do we draw the line? Samsung’s folly didn’t lie in the voice command function or the cloud-based data collection. It went wrong when it took the control away from the consumer.

People should be able to choose what data they want to share with such MSOs. Once users have control over the preferences and interests they input into a discovery platform, there is balance between personalization and privacy.

Further complicating the issue, providers operate in silos, where their discovery platforms are segregated from other video content services. Users still have to switch between platforms to search through different services. It’s like searching online pre-Google.

This is why it’s so hard to use the TV today. If you simply want to know what’s on tonight, preferably focusing on the things you’re interested in, and you want a couple of on-demand movie or show options as back-up, you’ll be spending a long time going through different services. So, in a world where Google can curate your search results, consumers now expect better from their television search and discovery.

For several years, industry analysts have expected service providers like Apple to develop the hardware innovations that would solve these user interface problems. Despite a growing clamor for a solution, however, thus far none have been introduced. So it’s left up to the providers to develop software solutions, instead.

The holy grail of content discovery is to provide the consumer an integrated solution that gives the ability to shape the experience across all viewing outlets, curating content along the way. When that solution is overarching and can access every application or service that provides video content, the curation process becomes simpler, more accurate and a more rewarding experience for the user. They will consume more, because they find more of what they want. They will be happier and the operators will have more engaged customers, not to mention a bit of a revenue per user uptick.

These solutions are out there. For example, Kannuu’s content discovery system allows for fast and intuitive discovery with a standard TV remote by employing predictive algorithms that reduce key presses by up to 90% compared to the clunky letter grid. Sophisticated, personalized discovery systems allow users to search among multiple apps without having to exit and select what data they want to provide to the system to help personalize their recommended content.

Overarching platforms like Kannuu’s are addressing the fundamental shift in the television user experience. These universal content discovery providers are making TV fun again by bringing advanced technology to the backward television industry. 

Todd Viegut is CEO of Kannuu