LG to bring Google Play Movies and TV to its Smart TV range later this month in US, UK, Australia, and Canada
Jared Newman / TechHive :
Context & Ripple Effects
In late 2015, LG opened its webOS-based Smart TV line to Google's media catalog, bringing Play Movies and TV to sets in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada — an app-partnership route into the living room that sits alongside Google's licensed Android TV platform, which by Android TV's count of 140+ pay TV operator deployments worldwide had become its other major TV distribution channel.
The partnership proved durable and directional: LG went on to host Movies Anywhere's first-ever smart TV app in 2020 and to bring Google Stadia and Nvidia GeForce Now to its latest sets in 2021, while Google itself later retired the Movies and TV section from the Play Store into a dedicated Google TV app.
First-order effects
- Viewers in the four launch countries can play their existing Google Play movie and TV purchases natively on LG Smart TVs instead of relying on phones, Chromecast, or separate boxes.
- Google gains direct shelf presence on one of the largest smart TV platforms outside its own Android TV ecosystem.
Second-order effects
- LG's willingness to host rival-platform media apps makes it the default launch partner for digital locker and streaming services' smart TV debuts, as Movies Anywhere's choice of LG shows, pressuring competing TV makers to match app catalogs to avoid being the set without the service.
- Every app LG adds from Google reduces the differentiation of Google's own licensed hardware partners, since the same content is reachable without buying an Android TV device.
Third-order effects
- The arc from Play Movies and TV through cloud gaming to a consolidated Google TV app points toward Google treating smart TV operating systems like LG's as neutral delivery surfaces — content and services travel as apps while Google gradually detaches its storefront brand from the Play Store name.
- If TV makers keep welcoming cross-platform apps, competition among smart TV platforms shifts from exclusive content toward app breadth and interface quality, weakening the walled-garden logic of console and set-top ecosystems.
The trend: Smart TV platforms are becoming neutral app hubs where Google distributes media, purchases, and even cloud gaming directly onto third-party operating systems rather than requiring its own Android TV hardware.