Smart TVs

Smart TVs in the U.S. have reached a milestone with a new study from  Hub Entertainment Research showing that American homes now own an estimated 204 million smart TV sets, breaking the 200 million mark for the first time. The fifth annual wave of Hub Entertainment Research’s “Connected Home” study found that 77% of TV households say they own a smart TV, up from 66% three years ago. Well over a majority of all TV sets — six in 10 (61%) — are now reported to be smart sets, up from 45% in 2020.

Eight years ago, more than a quarter of all streaming was done on an Xbox or PlayStation. Not surprisingly, the smart TV now rules streaming, with Aluma Insights reporting smart TV penetration into 64% of U.S. households, and 50% of consumers using the smart TV as their primary streaming device.

The Better Business Bureau is warning of a scam involving popular streaming devices, such as Roku and Amazon Fire TV sticks, and services like Netflix and YouTube TV. The BBB said it has received an influx of reports regarding scammers targeting victims through pop-ups on their smart TVs.

After entering the smart-TV sector years ago by licensing its interface and brand, Roku now plans to design and manufacture its own line of TV sets. The streaming company today said the Roku Select and Roku Plus Series TVs, with 11 models ranging from 24 to 75 inches, will be available this spring. Retail prices will range from $119 to $999.

Smart TV maker Vizio has gotten itself into the payment and subscription management business, introducing the Vizio Account. Vizio said the account will make it easier for smart TV users to subscribe to streaming services and take advantage of special offers. With the Vizio Account, viewers can sign in once and spend less time accessing and managing viewing options.

Cable giant Comcast has been weighing the acquisition of a TV maker to bolster its nascent smart TV platform efforts. One of the companies approached by Comcast has been Vizio, according to three sources with knowledge of these conversations. Separately, Comcast has also eyed TV maker TP Vision, according to one source with knowledge of those talks.

Ad tech company Tremor International is investing $25 million in VIDAA, the smart TV operating system subsidiary of Chinese set maker Hisense Co. Tremor International said its goal is to grow VIDAA, making it a bigger player in both the competitive TV OS category and the growing CTV marketplace.

Cox Communications is seeking a way to do more with smart TVs and streaming platforms to enable customers to access its pay TV services and other streaming apps without the need for a separate set-top box. “We’re exploring the [smart TV] space,” Mark Gathen, VP of content acquisition at Cox, said Wednesday during a panel at the StreamTV Show in Denver. “We haven’t partnered with anyone right now.”

From storage to processor speeds, most sticks, dongles, pucks and smart TVs in living rooms today are getting quickly left behind by the demands of the streaming wars.

Charter Communications and Comcast on Wednesday announced a 50/50 joint venture to develop a streaming platform on branded 4K streaming devices and smart TVs. Comcast will license Flex, the company’s aggregated streaming platform and hardware to the new joint venture, contribute the retail business for XClass TVs as well as Xumo, a streaming service acquired in 2020. Charter will make an initial contribution of $900 million, funded over multiple years.

The Long Island newspaper has remade itself as a multimedia news producer with a two-studio, multimillion-dollar production operation and a team of MMJs ramping up extensive video coverage. (Newsday photo)

Even though the world began to open up and people started going outside more in 2021, consumers are still streaming more than ever before. Time spent streaming grew globally 21% year-over-year in the third quarter, and up 2% in North America. Smart TVs, like Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Vizio, are continuing to see massive gains over external connected TV devices like a Chromecast or Apple TV. After nearly doubling their market share in 2020, smart TVs were responsible for nearly all the growth among big screens in the third quarter, up 64%.

Hisense debuted its first Roku-powered 8K smart TV on the shelves (virtual and otherwise) of Best Buy and Amazon earlier this month. And already, we’re seeing a trend re-emerge that defined the 4K smart TV era — smart TV’s made by Chinese manufacturers, enabled with the Roku OS, undercutting more expensive Korean rivals.

Measurement and analytics company iSpot, one of the top challengers to Nielsen, said it signed a licensing deal with LG Ads Solutions that gives iSpot access to program and ad data from more than 20 million smart TVs.

Alan Wolk: The number of set-top boxes is shrinking, while the number of smart TVs is growing at a similarly steady rate. This is likely to make measurement harder to calculate in the years to come.

In the span of one month, Comcast has gone from outlier in the streaming platform market to suddenly having a robust smart TV strategy on two continents.