Nielsen’s Gracenote bowed data sets designed to help content owners and buyers optimize TV program licensing and acquisition strategies, it said Wednesday. The Distribution Dynamics and Program Availability Archive gives insights on how streaming and broadcast programs are consumed by evaluating "bingeability," loyalty and program similarity, it said. Using the archive, content creators, licensors and buyers can see program release scheduling, stacking, windowing and removal information and use the insights to develop content strategies, it said. Information from the past five years includes program and episode titles, unique Gracenote content identifiers, original air dates, availability start and end dates, and season and episode numbers, it said. With the data, streaming services and networks can optimize slate management through visibility into what content is better suited for viewer acquisition vs. viewer retention or what types of programming better resonate with certain audiences, Gracenote said.

The global smart TV market will grow at a 16.7% compound annual growth rate to $609.5 billion by 2027, up from $151.8 billion in 2018, said a Thursday Brandessence report. TV makers in the future will focus more on experience design, it said. Price optimization is creating a market for low- and medium-income customers.

Roku and Walmart expanded their onn.-brand Roku TV line to Canada, said the companies Wednesday. The onn. Roku smart TVs, sold exclusively in-store and online at Walmart starting this month, are available in 24-to-75-inch screen sizes. Starting price is $328.

The living room “is another area of opportunity” for YouTube growth, said Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on a Q1 earnings call Tuesday. “On average, viewers are watching over 700 million hours of YouTube content on televisions every day,” he said. Within the next year, “we will give YouTube's connected TV viewers new smartphone control navigation and interactivity features, allowing people to comment and share content they are watching on television directly from their devices,” he said. Brands are turning to YouTube “to tap into the shift to streaming and reach new audiences in smarter and more efficient ways,” said Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler. “We've recently rolled out new tools to help advertisers consistently plan and measure” their connected TV spend across platforms, he said. “Later this year, in partnership with Nielsen, we'll help brands directly compare their YouTube reach to linear TV, including the ability to measure co-viewing. This apples-to-apples comparison will be a game changer in helping advertisers make smarter investment decisions.”

Smart TV ownership, along with smart speakers/displays and desktop PCs, grew during the COVID-19 pandemic due to higher “perceived value,” said Parks Associates Wednesday. Smart TV adoption is at an all-time high, though there may be some “short-term saturation and conservatism in effect” as buying “settles” after strong increases during the pandemic, said analyst Paul Erickson. Smart TVs and smart speakers/displays have shown “durability in sustaining growth” and are expected to maintain elevated adoption over the next few years, he said. That's notable since "the aggregate trend across categories has been a very gradual decline in overall usage since 2017,” Erickson said. Smart TVs are the entertainment hub for the home, and they offer future integration opportunities for smart home and connected health ecosystems, he said. Despite downturns over the past six months for the top three brands -- Samsung, LG and Vizio -- Sony smart TV purchases grew, likely on release of new Google TV Bravia models; Sony edged Vizio out of third place, said the analyst.

TiVo and VideoAmp renewed their data licensing agreement for TiVo’s viewership data on live and time-shifted content, the companies said Thursday. VideoAmp’s platform automates advertising workflows, deduplicates audiences across traditional TV, streaming video, digital media and walled gardens, and connects media exposures to an advertiser’s sales, it said. The contract runs through 2026 with renewal options.

Vizio launched a feature Thursday called Jump Ads that gives viewers options on how they view commercials. Vizio calls it “a bridge” between linear TV and streaming services that lets programmers and brands present an interactive overlay at the end of linear TV programs that directs viewers into a supporting app on SmartCast TVs "to continue their viewing experience,” the company said. Fox is the first company to test the feature for Welcome to Flatch. Viewers will be prompted to continue watching more episodes of the program or to catch up on past episodes on the Fox Now app, where the company is streaming the first seven shows on-demand the same day as the premiere. “By encouraging and increasing viewership across formats, Jump Ads gives content providers a new opportunity to engage viewers beyond a single linear session with the ability to fully control and customize the user journey between platforms,” Vizio said. Viewers can choose at what point of the show the ads will appear, how often they appear, and which app the overlap points to. The company is working with additional content providers on integrations, it said. Jump Ads uses Vizio’s Inscape automatic character recognition technology to recognize when a program participating in Jump Ads is on air, and additional proprietary Vizio software to target and serve the overlay to the viewer in real-time.

Comcast Advertising announced the AudienceXpress brand, which allows U.S. advertisers to buy TV advertising on an audience basis across broadcast, cable, digital and connected TV. Comcast's FreeWheel team will come under the AudienceXpress brand, said the company. The offering includes the ability to measure and report on campaigns in “near real time”; integration with major MVPDs; use of aggregated Comcast viewership data, along with first- and third-party data; and incremental reach and attribution.

Xperi subsidiary TiVo announced Monday an end-to-end advertising offering built on its first-party deterministic TV viewership data. TiVo Xtend is said to bridge the gap between linear and streaming, allowing advertisers to understand how audiences are engaging with their TV campaigns. The integration of TiVo’s behavioral data will improve effectiveness of audience creation and targeted CTV placement, said Walt Horstman, TiVo senior vice president-monetization. Features include first-party viewership data to identify “who has or has not tuned into programming or seen a message from a brand or its competitor(s)"; custom or pre-built programmatic audience segments, scaled and tested for precise digital targeting on CTV, PC, tablet and mobile; premium CTV inventory layered with Xtend or custom audiences to add reach and frequency to linear across 40 million households; and dynamic, clickable ads placed within native TiVo guides to promote content to relevant audiences, it said.

Vizio expanded its Household Connect cross-device advertising platform to allow marketers to extend their campaigns beyond the TV to computers, tablets and mobile devices. The offering, building on Vizio's Yahoo partnership, integrates TransUnion’s TruAudience Identity and Data Marketplace, it said Wednesday. Through Vizio Ads, advertisers can use Vizio’s proprietary automatic content recognition data along TransUnion data, it said. After being presented an ad on a Vizio TV, viewers will see a “complementary ad or call-to-action on their computer, tablet, or mobile device shortly thereafter,” said Oz Lang, vice president-product management.