Vizio

If you want to see your family and friends on TV, Vizio has just the thing. The smart TV maker unveiled Viziogram, a feature that lets people share photos and video with other Vizio TV set owners. The feature is available through Vizio’s redesigned mobile app. The pictures are rendered in high definition and can be sent to a TV from a mobile phone.

A Vizio executive says the company is not overly concerned with competition from Roku after the streaming platform announced its intention to design and make its own smart TVs. Speaking at the 25th annual Needham Growth Conference on Tuesday, Vizio Chief Revenue and Strategic Growth Officer Mike O’Donnell said his electronics company has been in the television space for more than two decades, and competition from other companies “is nothing new for us.”

Vizio is integrating interactive advertising capabilities in its WatchFree+ free, ad-supported streaming (FAST) service, via a partnership with Brightline. Vizio is using Brightline’s Accelerator program, which is already used to enable dynamic and shoppable ads on Hulu, Peacock, Discovery+ and other platforms. The new deal marks the first smart TV integration for Accelerator and makes Vizio the first smart-TV manufacturer to enable advertisers to make their ads interactive and shoppable, according to the companies.

Vizio swung to a profit in the third-quarter as gains at its Platform Plus business more than offset a drop in device sales. Net income was $2 million, or 1 cent a share, compared to a net loss of $18.6 million, or 10 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue fell 26% to $435 million.

Vizio is launching a Fall Fest programming event on its WatchFree Plus streaming service. Fall Fest will feature world premiere programming, exclusive on-demand series and curated channels.

E.W. Scripps and Vizio said they made a deal that adds four Scripps channels to Vizio’s Watch Free Plus streaming platform. The agreement is the latest in the last few weeks that give the over-the-air Scripps networks–led by Ion and Bounce–carriage as free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels.

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.

The measurement company will use Inscape ACR data from approximately 20 million Vizio TVs, obtains first window of exclusivity to Vizio’s newly expanded local station coverage.

Vizio said it is beta testing a new ad format called Jump Ads and that Fox is the first programmer to test the feature. Jump ads appear as interactive overlays at the end of a linear TV program. They direct viewers to a supporting app on Vizio SmartCast to continue their viewing experience. In Fox’s execution, the Jump Ad appears at the end of the new series Welcome To Flatch and direct viewers to catch up on past episodes on the Fox Now App, where the first seven episodes of the docu-comedy are streaming.

As it announced that it had secured $100 million in TV-video upfront media agency/advertiser “commitments” for the 2022 year, Vizio Holdings Corp. says its smart TV platform 3Q revenues — largely from advertising sales — grew 134% to $85.9 million.

Comcast, Charter Communications and Vizio, among others, have created a consortium to identify ways to simplify and scale an increasingly complex TV ad business.

Univision is planning to build its addressable advertising capabilities, starting with beta tests with Vizio and Dish this year. More partners will be brought on next year, said Donna Speciale, president of advertising sales and marketing at Univision. Univision earlier announced being involved in the beta testing of Nielsen’s addressable technology, since sold to Roku. It also joined Project OAR, a group led by Vizio that looks to set standards for addressable advertising.

Vizio Ads introduced Universal Frequency Control, a product that limited the number of time a viewer sees the same spot when an advertiser buys commercial inventory through the smart-TV set maker’s platform.

While late to the ad game compared to the likes of Roku and Amazon, original equipment manufacturers like Vizio, Samsung and LG are hurriedly building out their advertising businesses as ad dollars flow into connected TV.