Big TV manufacturers made big news at CES, while NBCU and Disney stepped up their ad games. Meanwhile, Netflix has grown ad-tier users, and Amazon’s headcount is shrinking.
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Fire TV’s big win with Panasonic (1:40)
Panasonic has relied on Android TV for its smart TV OS for several years. That started to change last year with the introduction of the MX800 4K LED in the UK and Ireland with Amazon Fire TV built-in. The TV maker announced at CES 2024 that all new smart TVs will come with Fire TV.
The Panasonic win is a big deal for Fire TV, which has built its success on dongles. The market is shifting toward smart TVs and away from TV dongles.
Samsung adds profiles to Tizen (4:30)
Samsung announced it will add profiles to 2024 TVs and provide individualized content recommendations. I’ve been using Google TV’s profiles since they were introduced in June 2022, and I find them mildly annoying rather than useful. There are two problems:
- Apps are not integrated with the TVOS profile, annoying users with multiple identity requests
- YouTube Premium is specific to each profile, so everyone uses the same profile to get the ad-free benefit.
LG adding support for Chromecast to its TVs (8:40)
Playing a video from a mobile device on an LG TV has, until now, required the user to mirror the device’s screen. The TV maker said it will support Chromecast in all its new TVs. Users of mobile video apps that support Chromecast – including Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu – can select the video in the app and cast it to an LG TV on the same Wi-Fi network. The user can then use their phone to ignore the video and browse their social feeds.
The move is an interesting one for LG. When someone uses the Tubi app on an LG TV, the TV OEM gets a cut of the ad revenue. When someone uses the Tubi app on an Android phone, Google gets a cut of the ad revenue. But who gets paid when a Tubi video playing on a smartphone is cast to an LG TV?
TCL introduces new Google TV-powered sets (11:40)
Roku has been a close partner of TCL since the Chinese company introduced TVs in the US market. However, the new high-end QLED TVs announced at CES 2024 will be powered by Google TV. Roku garnered nary a mention in TCL’s press conference and press release.
TCL has been instrumental in helping Roku OS become dominant in the US. It is the second biggest TV brand in the US and is a large part of why Roku can claim it powers the most smart TVs shipped here. Roku has already lost Hisense to Google TV. It cannot afford to lose TCL, too!
NBCU and Disney up their ad game (15:40)
NBCU revealed that 30% of Peacock ads are filled via programmatic platforms. The company also announced the launch of its One ad platform, unifying broadcast and streaming.
Disney also had several updates, including:
- Interactive, personalized ads
- Clean Room interoperability with Google Cloud
- Magic Words – a contextual ad format
Netflix has 23 million monthly active users (23:20)
There are now 23 million Netflix viewers watching with ads each month.
Amazon lays off studio employees (25:30)
Amazon says it will lay off hundreds of people from its Prime Video and Amazon Studios businesses.
