Report: TV remote may soon be history

By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff

Write the obit for the TV remote --- because it’s soon destined to join the rotary phone and the buggy whip as a curious museum piece --- or so suggests a new report by Altman Vilandrie & Co. and Research Now.

According to a press release issued by the firms, many younger consumers would prefer using their smartphone or tablet computer to change channels, or check out something to watch from Netflix or Hulu.

“Instead of the age-old argument about who holds the TV remote, families will soon be squabbling over whose smartphone is controlling the TV,” Altman Vilandrie & Co. director Jonathan Hurd said in a statement. “More and more, a new generation of viewers wants to watch TV and movies on their own schedule and with their own smartphones, computers, and tablets. Consumers are removing the shackles of the traditional prime-time TV lineup and creating their own personal networks of preferred programming and viewing times.”

Another survey finding: 11 percent of smartphone owners between the ages of 18 and 34 watch TV shows and movies on a mobile phone daily.

With offices in Boston and New York, Altman Vilandrie & Co. is a strategy consulting group that focuses on the communications, media, smart grid, clean tech, and related technology and investor sectors.

Research Now conducted the online survey with more than 1,000 US consumers in July.