This week, Panasonic announced a new “partnership” with Chinese manufacturing giant Skyworth for its TV business.
The news broke at a launch event in Germany attended by What Hi-Fi?, where we also got our first look at Pansonic’s 2026 range of TVs, which includes just one new affordability-focused OLED.
During the event, the two firms revealed that the Shenzhen-based company will handle all sales, marketing, and logistics for most future TVs with Panasonic branding destined for Europe and the UK. Panasonic, meanwhile, will handle quality control.
In short, it looks as though Skyworth will make, distribute and sell the new TVs, while Panasonic rubber stamps them as “meeting its standards”.
We await full details, but one company paying to use another's brand, or entering a formal partnership to co-develop products, isn't anything new in TV land. Philips has had a deal with TP Vision for many moons, and Sony announced a new partnership with TCL earlier this year.
It’s too early to say how these changes will play out. Despite nearly two decades of reviewing TVs, I have yet to test one from the Skyworth stable. So I don’t have any experience of the company's TV-making abilities.
It has, though, made plenty of OLED sets in the past, which TCL, a famous champion of Mini LED, has not – hence my and some of the team’s concerns about Sony’s future in the space when their partnership was first announced.
At the event, all the representatives from both sides were making the right noises, of course, telling our senior staff writer, Lewis Empson, “Panasonic TVs will stay true to what makes them great,” but “with new scale and resources behind them.”
If true, that’s awesome.
Still, I am somewhat nervous. In my experience, these sorts of partnerships haven't always led to “great products” for the end user.
For example, remember when Samsung bought Harman and started plastering AKG branding over a wealth of three-star earbuds, including the original Galaxy Buds Pro and Galaxy Buds Pro 2?
Or the procession of TVs with “tuned by Onkyo” or “tuned by B&O” branding that ended up with three-star scores for their sound section.
In a past life, when I still reviewed smartphones, I also remember some pretty disastrous “partnerships” with camera makers.
There was one in particular with Motorola and Hasselblad – a premier camera maker that helped develop the technology used to film the moon landing. Let’s just say the results weren’t out of this world…
There are too many examples littered throughout history to list here. But for me, the idea of Panasonic TVs going down the same route is particularly sad.
As a reviewer, I am, of course, unbiased; but I have very fond memories covering the brand, which was one of the most exciting TV makers on the scene in the early days of my career.
Its plasma TVs dominated the market. More importantly, they genuinely had the performance chops to justify their popularity.
Heck, look at our reviews of its TVs at the time. In 2009, the year of my first TV review, the Panasonic TX-P42X10B earned a five-star recommendation. Humble brag: we were also the first brand to get a sample.
The following year, the Panasonic TX-P50V20 took things to the next level, winning our best 50-inch TV trophy during the 2010 What Hi-Fi? Awards.
This hot streak continued all the way to 2013 with the Panasonic TX-P50GT60B plasma set winning best premium 47in-52in TV that year.
Panasonic was, for us and many readers, the top dog of plasma, pure and simple.
And, while many reviewers started favouring rivals’ LCD and OLED offerings, as evidenced by the decline in Panasonic TV sales from that point, I personally continued to love the firm’s premium offerings and overt focus on delivering “as the director intended experiences”.
In fact, it was this DNA that led me to invest in a (heavily discounted) four-star Panasonic TX-55EZ952B for personal use in 2017.
And this focus has carried on over the years, despite diminishing sales, as evidenced by the Award-winning 48-inch Panasonic Z90B from 2025. It was its atypically mature, consistent picture that helped it take the trophy.
With sales dipping and Panasonic no longer being the mass-market darling it once was, I can see that new owners may want to change this. From a business perspective, it certainly makes sense. If profit is your end goal and the current strategy of focusing on cinephiles isn’t working, why not pivot to volume or at least tweak the formula to be more in line with what's doing well for rivals right now?
It’s just a little sad for people with tastes similar to mine, those who value uniformity and consistent picture quality over a blow your socks off nit count and smorgasbord of AI features.
The number of TV makers still focusing on my main priorities seems to be diminishing by the hour.
I can’t help but think that’s a bad thing. After all, authenticity and consistency always win the race longterm right? The tortoise and the hare taught us that. Right?!
Here’s hoping I’m wrong.
MORE:
These are the best TVs we have tested
We rank the best OLED TVs
Our pick of the best Panasonic TVs
