In my review of WebTV's usability , I concluded that they had great design, especially regarding novice user usability, but that the design constraints relating to using a small screen and cursor keys on a remote control were too severe for an optimal Web-browsing experience. Well, maybe Web-access through television sets doesn't need to be as usable as a normal computer if it can provide other benefits. Experience with traditional media has shown that even media that are quite similar can have different properties and different things they are good at. All are very different from comic books, novels, conference panels, or a list of the first million digits of pi.
TV is shown on a small screen that presents faces and close-ups better than landscapes.
Because viewers sit in their living rooms with many distractions, shows tend to be at most one hour long, meaning that they cannot evolve complex plots. Series of TV shows are common because the audience likes the convenience of tuning in every week at the same time and because they can easily do so since the TV set is in their house and has no usage fees. Seeing the same characters week after week leads to extensive character development during a season. Movies are about stories . Viewers have gone to the trouble of driving to the movie theater, so they want more than a half-hour show, though most films are still less than two hours long due to human biology.