MSN TV

WebTV: the internet on your television through a set-top box, bought by Microsoft in 1997, switched off in 2013

Shut down
19902026

WebTV was a set-top box and subscription service, launched on 18 September 1996 by WebTV Networks with boxes from Sony and Philips, that put email and the web on an ordinary television over a phone line. Microsoft bought the company in April 1997 for $425 million and renamed the service MSN TV in July 2001; the MSN TV 2 box followed in 2004. Microsoft announced the shutdown on 1 July 2013 and closed the service on 30 September 2013.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 1996
  2. 18 September 1996 Launch
    WebTV launches

    $329 boxes from Sony and Philips, $19.95 a month.

  3. 1997
  4. 6 April 1997 Acquisition
    Microsoft buys WebTV Networks

    $425 million.

  5. 2000
  6. 2000 Peak
    About a million subscribers
  7. 2001
  8. 18 July 2001 Rebrand
    WebTV becomes MSN TV
  9. 2004
  10. October 2004 Version
    MSN TV 2

    A broadband Windows CE box; the last hardware.

  11. 2013
  12. 1 July 2013 Shutdown announced
    Subscribers told MSN TV will close

    Mail to Outlook.com, photos to SkyDrive.

  13. 30 September 2013 Shutdown
    MSN TV switched off

    Seventeen years after WebTV launched.

The site through time

Browse msntv.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2013 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

WebTV Networks 1996–1997 Founded Founded 1995 by Steve Perlman, Bruce Leak and Phil Goldman
Microsoft 1997–2013 Acquisition $425 million; renamed MSN TV in 2001

Key figures [edit]

MetricValueAs ofConfidence
Registered accounts ▲ 1 million 2000 Estimated Approximate peak subscribers around 2000

Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Microsoft emailed the remaining MSN TV subscribers on 1 July 2013 to say the service would close on 30 September 2013 and pointed them at Outlook.com for their mail and SkyDrive for their photos. The set-top boxes had not been updated in years, MSN TV 2 of 2004 was the last hardware, and the audience it had been built for, people who did not own a computer, had by then bought a computer, a tablet or a phone.

Our analysis: WebTV was a genuinely good idea in 1996: a $329 box and a phone line gave anyone with a television email and the web, with a remote control and a wireless keyboard, no drivers and no crashes. Microsoft paid $425 million for it and then had no idea what to do with it beyond keeping it running; the broadband and PC prices that fell around it did the rest. It kept a loyal, elderly audience for seventeen years, which is longer than most of Microsoft's consumer services managed, and it closed when the last of that audience could be moved to Outlook.com.

History [edit]

The web on a television

Steve Perlman, Bruce Leak and Phil Goldman, all ex-Apple, founded WebTV Networks in Palo Alto in 1995 to build a box that would show the web on a television for people who would never buy a computer. WebTV launched on 18 September 1996: a set-top box from Sony or Philips at $329, a remote, an optional wireless keyboard, a built-in modem and a $19.95 monthly subscription to WebTV's own dial-up service, which rendered pages on its servers so they would look right on a television. Its encryption briefly classified it as a munition for export purposes. It sold slowly at first, then reached hundreds of thousands of subscribers as prices fell.

Microsoft bought WebTV Networks on 6 April 1997 for $425 million in cash and stock, and for a while it mattered: WebTV Plus (1997) added a TV tuner and interactive TV listings, WebTV was inside satellite receivers, and the WebTV team went on to build UltimateTV and much of Microsoft's television and Xbox work. Subscribers peaked at about a million around 2000.

MSN TV

On 18 July 2001 Microsoft renamed the service MSN TV, and in 2004 released the MSN TV 2 Internet & Media Player, a Windows CE box with broadband, that was the last hardware. Nothing much happened after that; the boxes were sold in ever smaller numbers, the service kept its email, its Page Builder home pages and its scrapbook, and its subscribers grew old with it. On 1 July 2013 Microsoft told them MSN TV would close on 30 September 2013 and moved their mail to Outlook.com and their photos to SkyDrive. The boxes went dark on schedule; a fan project has since revived the service for collectors on original hardware.

The domain today

msntv.com and webtv.net no longer belong to Microsoft; msntv.com redirects to an unrelated Dutch site.

Similar projects

AOL Dial-Up The modem noise stopped, AOL did not 1991–2025 MobileMe The Apple service Steve Jobs apologised for 2008–2012 CompuServe The internet before the internet 1979–2009 Pocket Eighteen years of saved-for-later, gone before you read it 2007–2025 Google Cloud Print Print from anything to any printer over the internet: ten years in beta, then switched off at the end of 2020 2010–2020 Cortana Microsoft's assistant, named after a Halo AI, retired for Copilot 2014–2023

Sources [edit]

  1. U.S. classifies a device to surf the web as a weapon The New York Times 8 November 1996 [archived]
  2. Microsoft to acquire WebTV Networks Microsoft 6 April 1997 [archived]
  3. Microsoft buys WebTV Wired 7 April 1997 [archived]
  4. WebTV granted first license to export highest-level encryption Microsoft 5 October 1998 [archived]
  5. WebTV renamed MSN TV Microsoft 18 July 2001 [archived]
  6. Microsoft quietly shuts down MSN TV, once known as WebTV AllThingsD 6 July 2013 [archived]
  7. Microsoft to shut down MSN TV service Variety 7 July 2013 [archived]
  8. Microsoft to retire MSN TV, the ahead-of-its-time connected set-top box TechRadar 7 July 2013 [archived]
  9. Microsoft's WebTV is being revived by fans Hackaday 30 December 2025 [archived]

Last verified: 16 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).