The Smart TV Weekly Digest is a curated collection of the week’s best articles about smart TVs and the future of content.

• Samsung wants to own your first, second, and third screens
  “The latest version of the Free the TV Challenge is focused on apps developed to bridge the divide between the TV and mobile phones, tablets and PCs. By doing so, Samsung hopes to tap into consumers’ increasing use of so-called second-screen devices while they are watching TV…”
  
  
• Changing channels: television’s insurgents - As consumers pull cable plug, other providers connect Web and TV.
  “But while the industry keeps a nervous eye on prime time, other players are looking beyond ratings and time slots. They want to break down traditional viewing habits, expand the definition of a hit to include Web-original programs and remake the cable television business model, which relies on charging viewers for hundreds of channels they never watch…”
  
  
• Campaign Trains Viewers for ‘TV Everywhere’
  “Viewers, after all, are not accustomed to being able to go online and see a library’s worth of television on demand. A new advertising campaign by Turner Broadcasting aims to tell them how. In a series of commercials that will start appearing on Monday on the TNT and TBS cable channels, Turner stars like Conan O’Brien will be employed to explain the concept of TV Everywhere, which has been championed by Turner’s parent, Time Warner, as a way to retain cable subscribers…”
  
  
• Stream sports to an iPad dock-equipped shopping cart
  “Most of us have done some online shopping while watching a game. But what about watching online sports while shopping? A food market chain in London is testing out that concept by combining a shopping cart, an iPad and a streaming sports app…”
  
  
• IBC: operators must relinquish some control to harness SocTV
  “We have this weird relationship where TV and social media are coming closer together,” said Claire Tavernier, Senior Executive VP, Fremantle Media UK. Many operators are not yet sure how to harness this opportunity and have yet to accept that they must be willing to give up some of the control over their customers they have long taken for granted,” she added…”
  
  
• CEA to Host First-Ever TV Apps Developer University
  “The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)(R) will host its first-ever TV Apps Developer University event on September 29, 2011, at the CEA headquarters in Arlington, Va. This hands-on, interactive training event will help developers learn to build TV apps…”
  
  
• Channel Master TV Will Let You Cut The Cord And Keep The Sports
  “Channel Master’s newest DVR is a cord cutters dream. It lets users record over-the-air programming so they can ditch cable and still follow their local news and sports. And there’s no monthly fee, just the cost of the device…”
  
• Will Cable’s Superboxes Pay Off?
  “Cable operators are preparing to launch hybrid video gateways ahead of an inevitable IP video transition, but will the business model work if the devices run $400 a pop?…”
  
• A first look at Google TV’s new apps
  “Perhaps even more interesting is that there are also a number of apps from smaller developers who are trying to push the envelope of what’s possible with Google TV. Take Call Toaster for example, which automatically displays caller IDs…”
  
  
• Big cable is facing an ‘affordability crisis’
  “Bernstein Research Senior Analyst Craig Moffett issued a research note Wednesday that not only backs up that claim with some real data, but paints a damning picture of cable affordability in light of larger macroeconomic trends…”

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