Rebecca Day

CE sales at Voxx dropped 5.5% to $88.9 million in its fiscal Q1 ended May 31 “largely due to many of the big box retailers cutting inventory immediately after their Q1 results,” said Voxx CEO Pat Lavelle on an earnings call Tuesday. The stock plunged 26% Tuesday to close at $6.73.

Whether billed as Deal Days or Black Friday in July, tech retailers got a jump on Amazon’s Prime Day with sales of their own Monday. Best Buy, Target and P.C. Richard kicked off their July sales Monday, a day before Amazon’s high-profile 48-hour Prime Day event that begins Tuesday at 3 a.m. EDT.

U.S. linear TV ad spending will grow 4.1% to $68.4 billion this year, then trail downward over the next few years to $64.9 billion in 2026, with a slight bump in 2024 due to the presidential election and Summer Olympics, said a June eMarketer report. TV ad spending won’t return to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels through the 2026 forecast period “and most likely it never will," it said. "The golden age of traditional TV advertising is behind us."

The home audio industry, facing declines in traditional categories including AV receivers and loudspeakers, should explore new opportunities in adjacent markets such as podcasting and creators, blogged Dave Kaplan, partner at consulting firm bluesalve last week.

Amazon will set a new low for Fire TV pricing at $49 for an Insignia 32-inch HD model, it said Thursday, teasing more deals before Tuesday’s Prime Day kickoff. A 50-inch Amazon-branded 4K Fire TV will sell for $99 during the 48-hour sales event, Amazon said.The discounts are 72% and 79%, respectively.

Amid an industry-wide retail promotional atmosphere reminiscent of Black Friday, Amazon got a jump on itself before Prime Days, announcing Wednesday exclusive “offers and experiences” for Prime members, including a free, one-year membership to the food delivery service Grubhub+ ($9.99 per month) with no delivery fees on eligible orders at “hundreds of thousands of restaurants” in over 4,000 cities.

Gearing up for Prime Day July 12-13, Amazon touted its operations network Tuesday, blogging it spent two decades building and investing in a network that’s “nimble and prepared for shopping events like Prime Day and the holiday rush.” This year, it's “as prepared as ever,” Amazon said, after two years of retail impact from COVID-19-based disruption.

Harnessing usage data is essential to home energy management solutions, but there’s a disconnect between utilities' data and homeowners looking to control energy costs, said panelists on Parks Associates’ Smart Energy Summit Thursday.

The “extremely volatile” virtual MVPD market “never really took off” in the way its proponents thought it would, said Horowitz Research analyst Adriana Waterston on a Wednesday Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing webinar on the state of the pay-TV, over-the-top video and subscription VOD markets.

Bowers & Wilkins began taking orders for the Px7 S2 headphones ($399), it said Wednesday, replacing the PX7 with a model that includes new drive units, noise cancellation technology and materials. A flagship Px8 model ($549) has a September target date, in a “staggered launch” owing in part to supply chain disruptions, said Andy Kerr, director of product marketing, on an embargoed webcast this month.