So the Japanese TV industry was decimated in almost exactly the same way that the US industry was in the 1980s with the loss of RCA and Zenith.

That’s a pretty impressive run. Panasonic TVs were good though to see them finish is a shame.

TVs have just become a commodity, there's very little incentive for the technology to continue to get better. Everyone just competes on size and price, and every manufacturer has turned their TVs into marketing platforms. The state of the market is so sad.

I really liked the old Panasonic analog TVs and own a couple of them.

Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guck4FoWQss

I thought they had already quit when plasma became the obvious worse choice.

It’s a bittersweet milestone in the commoditization of display tech; Panasonic’s engineering-first approach, especially during the plasma era, consistently pushed the entire industry toward better color accuracy. Hopefully, they can maintain their internal image processing teams, as their color science was often what truly justified the premium over more generic panels.