The coming death — and rebirth — of hotel TV

Control of the hotel in-room entertainment experience has shifted. Pay-per-view is out, online streaming is in, and TVs are taking a backseat to tablets and laptops. Smart hotels are increasingly catering to digital travelers who rarely leave the house without at least two devices.

Here’s what to expect as hotel guests continue to wrangle control of the remote control from hotel operators.

• The rise of bring your own entertainment: Hotels are increasingly becoming places for people to plug-in their own devices as hotel-provided, in-room entertainment takes a backseat to the entertainment travelers bring with them.
• Pay-per view is dying: Industry figures show hotel pay-per-view revenues have slid by 39 percent from 2000 to 2009, and even porn hasn’t been able to survive the decline.
• Hotel TVs aren’t just for linear TV anymore: Today’s digital travelers are consuming entertainment in hotels in much the same way they do at home: via online services like Amazon Prime, Hulu and Netflix. One approach is to turn TVs into hubs for more cohesive entertainment systems that work seamlessly with guests’ own devices and streaming services.
• Faster wi-fi for a fee: Hotels are turning to tiered pricing to balance customers’ demands for free WiFi with their own desire to generate revenue and offset the costs of network upgrades.
• Some hotel brands are becoming entertainment leaders: If you’re looking for the ultimate in-room experience, look to The Peninsula and Hyatt brands. In Hong Kong, the Peninsula recently installed in-room entertainment systems that cost between $10,000 and $25,000 a room. Around the world, Hyatt offers its plug panel, which lets guests connect pretty much any device to its in-room TVs.

For more trends and analysis on this, get the Skift’s Global Trends Report on “The Future of Hotel In-Room Entertainment.”