Smart TVs

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.

Samsung — one of the largest purveyors of ACR (automatic content recognition) data derived from smart TVs used by that ad industry, if not the largest — is hedging its audience measurement bets by going with the industry’s tried-and-true measurement brand: Nielsen.

Smart TVs now represent a majority of TVs owned by U.S. households and, according to Hub Entertainment Research, it may pose a threat to connected TV devices. The research firm released findings from its third annual “Connected Home” report that suggest ownership of a smart TV set is at 70% of TV households this year. The survey results also suggest that 52% of all TV sets are now reported to be smart TVs, up from 45% in 2020, which Hub said indicates accelerated replacement of older, non-smart TVs.

The new app combines the latest programming from The CW and fan-favorite library series from CW Seed Free on Vizio SmartCast televisions.

Under the terms the companies are discussing, retail giant Walmart would promote TV sets running Comcast software, and would get a share of recurring revenue from Comcast in return.

Comcast wants to turn the software running on its set-top boxes into an operating system for smart TVs, according to multiple industry insiders with knowledge of the company’s plans. The company began pitching TV manufacturers on the idea in recent months and had some conversations on the subject at CES in January. It’s unclear how far these talks have progressed, but the push underlines the growing importance of smart TVs as a major platform for the future of entertainment.

Ad supported streaming service Tubi said it has reached a deal to be loaded onto smart TVs from Hisense using the new version of its Vidaa video platform. Hisense is the world’s third-largest TV manufacturer and the deal covers the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K., where Tubi plans to launch later this year.

Nielsen is moving beyond TV ratings to stake a claim in the addressable TV advertising market, and the company is acquiring Sorenson Media for $11.25 million to help it get there. In coordination with the acquisition, Nielsen is launching Nielsen Advanced Video Advertising, a new product that will focus on addressable advertising for smart TVs.