Rebecca Day

"The biggest challenge to premium consumer products is the survival of the brick and mortar retail channel,” Joe Atkins, chairman of Bowers & Wilkins Group, told Consumer Electronics Daily at the New York stop on the Maserati Quattroporte Seven Notes World Tour Thursday. Premium retail locations provide a “wonderful sales experience if done correctly,” Atkins said.

Reaction continued trickling in to ESPN’s announcement Wednesday that it will fold ESPN 3D by year-end for lack of viewer interest (CED June 13 p1). “Not much to say,” CEA President Gary Shapiro told us by email late Wednesday. “I am certain they will do better with ultra4K!” Three years ago, Shapiro greeted as “a turning point for 3D” ESPN’s 2010 CES announcement that it would launch ESPN 3D that June for World Cup soccer coverage. More recently, Shapiro castigated 3D TV as “a little overhyped” and surmised that 3D TV one day would go down as a “case history” for mistakes that Hollywood and the CE industry “have collectively made” (CED April 2 p1). In pulling the plug on ESPN 3D, ESPN said that as a “technology leader,” it would continue to “experiment” with Ultra HD “production tools” for use on the “current ESPN family of HD channels.” ESPN executives last fall pooh-poohed any likelihood their network would launch a native-4K live-sports channel (CED Oct 25 p1). As for any negative ripple effect that ESPN 3D’s demise might have on other 3D TV programming services, a 3net representative declined to speculate. “3net is a 3D joint venture channel from Discovery, Sony and Imax, and the channel is not affiliated with Disney or ESPN in any manner,” spokeswoman Kristien Brada-Thompson said in a statement. “Although we don’t comment on the activities of other companies, their decision has no impact on our business.”

Three years and a day following the launch of ESPN 3D (CED June 11 p1), the network has pulled the plug on its struggling 3D channel, citing “limited viewer adoption of 3D services to the home.” ESPN spokeswoman Amanda DeCastro told Consumer Electronics Daily viewership of ESPN 3D isn’t rated by Nielsen, but, while the network can’t provide specific viewership data, the number of viewers was “extremely limited” and “just wasn’t growing.” 3D TV “hadn’t taken off like HD was,” and company executives decided “it was time to discontinue it” she said. ESPN is committing its 3D resources to other products and services “that will better serve fans and affiliates,” she said.

Coinstar is in the process of “collapsing” customer credit and debit card accounts and analyzing more than 10 years of usage data to learn Redbox customers’ full rental histories, with a goal of customizing marketing and promotion efforts to individual customers, Chief Financial Officer Galen Smith said at an investor conference this week.

Following Apple’s announcement of iTunes Radio Monday, competing music services reacted with a spate of news of their own Tuesday. Sony announced a limited-time discount on the company’s Music Unlimited service (see separate report in this issue), which cut the price 65 percent to $41.99 annually for PlayStation Plus members and to $59.99 for non-members. Rhapsody announced a free concert app that allows users to find scheduled nearby concerts, listen to full streams of the shows and buy tickets from their phone. The app boasts calendars for “virtually every” concert venue nationwide that are searchable by venue, artist and location, Rhapsody said. Under concert listings, users can find opening acts, band bios, photos, discography and lists of related artists, and hear music from bands that will play at a given concert. Rhapsody’s service is $10 a month and includes a 14-day trial offer, but Sonos announced Tuesday a $299 bundle combining the Sonos Bridge, a Play:3 system and a 90-day free trial of Rhapsody. Nokia responded to news of iTunes Radio with a comment on Apple’s timing to market that’s some two years after Nokia’s streaming service bowed. “It’s interesting to see Apple react now and it seems they continue to play catch up,” said Jyrki Rosenberg, vice president of Nokia Entertainment. Rosenberg cited Nokia’s “mobile-first approach,” automated personalization and ability to save playlists for offline use, along with no registration requirement, “no fee and no ads.” According to Nokia’s U.S. website, Nokia Music with Mix Radio includes 22 million tracks. Nielsen released a report Tuesday that said listeners under the age of 55 in a study of U.S. connected device owners conducted in Q1 named smartphones as their device of choice for streaming radio. Connected device owners aged 25-34 and 18-24 are the most likely to stream tunes from the radio using their smartphones -- at 27 and 26 percent -- while 14 percent of consumers aged 45 and over opted for streaming radio via laptop, it said. In most age categories, listeners indicated “no preference,” it said. Nielsen didn’t define “streaming radio,” including whether it includes both Internet radio and on-demand streaming.

Home automation startup brand TiO, which bowed its inaugural line of products this week at Infocomm, said it’s the first hardware system in the CEDIA channel that will drive traffic to dealers. When a new feature becomes available on the Android-based TiO platform, touchscreens on a homeowner’s TiO system will automatically show a new icon for the feature, which users can tap to be directed to the installing dealer for more information, Mike Anderson, president of TiO parent company Automated Control Technology Partners, told us. Apps will update four times a year, and one of the upcoming features will be security control, he said. TiO unveiled the Master Coordinator ($599), an 802.11n wireless access point that operates at a range of up to 450 feet and is the “overhead piece” that creates a “subnet” on the home network, Anderson said. The StealthStream 1 ($599) digital audio zone player, a 100-watt amplifier with built-in streamer, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth receiver, is designed to fit into a single-gang wall box. Touchscreen-based versions of the streaming amplifier include the 4-inch TouchStream 4 ($799) and the 7-inch TouchStream 7 ($899). Additional products include a Wi-Fi-based universal dimmer/light switch capable of controlling all major lighting types ($249) and a Wi-Fi-based thermostat ($299), the company said. Products will ship in July and August, Anderson said. The TiO’s integration with security systems will be “at arm’s length,” Anderson said. “We won’t mess with the integrity of the security system,” he said. The TiO system is designed to be installed and programmed quickly -- in less than a day for a 2,000-square-foot home -- and homeowners will be able to make changes to the system via a simple interface, he said. Dealers will have recurring revenue opportunities through $99 annual remote access fees that allow homeowners to access the system in up to two homes, he said. The TiO system won’t be controllable via iOS devices at launch, “but that doesn’t mean it won’t be,” said Matt Curtin, vice president-sales and marketing. Curtin said TiO is the only home automation system that can be set up by dealers using a tablet.

NuVo will be the technology platform of the future for parent company Legrand’s audio divisions, Doug Fikse, president of Legrand’s Home Systems division, told us in a phone interview. The company’s OnQ brand is migrating away from directions it was heading in before Legrand bought NuVo Technologies last November and into platforms based on NuVo’s wireless audio technology and the “expertise NuVo has,” Fikse said. Legrand said Monday it’s combining its NuVo and On-Q brands under a single sales organization that will work with dealers and distributors across regional sales territories. “You have to ultimately make decisions on how to best serve your customer base with your sales team,” he said. No staff positions were cut in the move but NuVo’s existing independent manufacturer’s reps will be terminated at the end of the month, he said. Fikse said there was “a lot of overlap” between larger NuVo installers and the OnQ product line, and the move was an “efficiency” decision. On whether the combined sales force might lead to branding consolidation, Fikse said, Vantage retains a position at the luxury end of the custom installation market, and OnQ has been migrating more to the Legrand brand. It’s possible that long term the company might consolidate the brands within Legrand, but brand positioning, particularly in international markets, would be a challenge at this time, he said. “Legrand is not known to consumers,” Fikse said, “so it may not make sense at all down the road to do anything different from the way NuVo is being handled now,” he said.

The landscape for Internet radio will likely take a dramatic turn this week when Apple is expected to announce its long-awaited Internet radio service at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. CNET reported Friday that Apple had finally secured a deal with Sony Music and now has the three major music labels on board, including Universal Music and Warner Music. Analysts largely see Pandora as most vulnerable to the Apple streaming service due to its visibility in the market, but NPD analyst Russ Crupnick said in Mark Twain fashion last week that reports of Pandora’s death “are greatly exaggerated."

As big-name players begin to stake out positions in the fledgling retail home automation market, work is under way to clarify the branding those various players and platforms use. IControl Networks is the software platform behind home automation offerings from cable companies such as Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable -- and for ADT Pulse. It’s working with cable providers on multiple-layer “seals” that will identify the cable provider brand along with an “umbrella mark” that indicates compatibility with the overall platform, Jason Domangue, vice president of ecosystem development at iControl, told Consumer Electronics Daily.

Despite the price premium for neodymium magnets, Bose turned to that rare-earth metal for a new compact transducer that’s been custom-designed for the company’s downsized Bluetooth SoundLink Mini speaker. Bose launched the speaker, along with noise-canceling earbuds, at a press event in Grand Central Terminal in New York Tuesday.