![]() ![]() "The exciting thing about consumer electronics is the pace of change. "No one wants a bulky telly in their sitting room any more when you can get a high definition, plasma screen at a reasonable price," he said.Īnd Mr Vestey at Sony insisted that consumers should not get nostalgic. Mr Clare said he wasn't saddened by the demise of the traditional TV. Rival Sanyo also has talked about axing 350 jobs at its television factory in Suffolk. It will no longer sell traditional TVs in the UK and has shifted its European production to a factory in Barcelona, which makes exclusively LCD models. Just before Christmas Sony closed its cathode ray tube television factory at Bridgend, which employed 650 people.īill Vestey, director of public affairs at Sony, admitted the company was taken aback by the pace of change. Manufacturers have already been hit by the flat-screen revolution. The company reckons this will accelerate as the World Cup approaches and more families buy wide-screen models to watch the matches. This Christmas plasma and LCD sales made up 90pc of sales in value terms. The cheapest LCD set is on sale for £169.Ī year ago only 10pc of Dixons' television sales were flat screen. The switchover to new technology in television has been fuelled by rapidly declining prices and improving quality of flat-screen TVs. The cheapest set now available is a 14in Waltham model sold in Currys for £49.99. In that year a colour set at Dixons cost £500, the same price as a Mini, according to Mr Clare. "The Walkman has almost gone, hasn't it? When the demand stops, we'll stop stocking it," he said.ĭixons started life as a camera retailer but by 1959, when colour was first introduced, it was selling cathode ray tube televisions. He admitted that it was likely Dixons would soon phase out stocking portable CD players and cassette players after the phenomenal success of digital music players such as the iPod. Mr Clare's killing off of the traditional box comes only a few months after Dixons stopped selling manual 35mm cameras. "But no one wanted one of these, even at the lower price," he said. The same model was cut to £300 this Christmas. John Clare, chief executive of DSG - Dixons' parent company - said during Christmas 2004 stores were selling a traditional TV for £1,300. The death of the traditional television has been swift and spectacular. ![]() The days are numbered for the traditional cathode ray television set after Dixons yesterday revealed it would stop selling them by the end of the year in favour of exclusively stocking flat-screen televisions. ![]()
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