Some bristled at a Louisiana legislator proposing changes to a sweeping privacy bill on the Friday before a Monday legislative hearing. The House Commerce Committee cleared HB-987 by voice with Microsoft-backed amendments. Committee members from both parties listed issues they want addressed as the bill moves to the floor.
TV imports to the U.S. in all screen sizes from all countries nudged 1.5% higher year over year in the seasonally weak first quarter, reaching 9.77 million sets, with an average customs value of $330.66, according to Customs data retrieved Sunday through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb portal. Q1 shipments fell 24.5% sequentially from Q4, and their average value trended 6.5% lower, evidence of the sustained decline in LCD panel prices that began last summer (see 2205020026).
An overabundance of content is a strength and a curse of the streaming TV market, said panelists on a Parks Associates Future of Video virtual webinar Thursday. “You have to connect consumers to the content they want," said Kamran Lotfi, Gracenote vice president-product management, citing data saying 46% of consumers say it’s hard to find content they want to watch.
About a quarter of trade shows that CEDIA Expo owner Emerald Holding plans to stage in 2022 “will likely exceed pre-pandemic revenue,” said CEO Herve Sedky on a Q1 earnings call Monday. Emerald, hard hit by cancellation of in-person trade shows during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, reported holding 31 in-person events during the quarter, drawing 5,700 exhibitors and 141,000 attendees.
Dolby Q1 results were above the midpoint of revenue guidance at $334.4 million, but the company lowered Q2 guidance to reflect the impact of “lower estimated TV, gaming and automotive shipments for the year,” said CEO Kevin Yeaman on the company’s Q2 FY ’22 earnings call Thursday.
Top Universal Display executives on a Q1 earnings call Thursday stood by claims they made on their February call that introduction of the first phosphorescent blue emissive OLED commercial products is possible in 2024 (see 2202240001). The company is “on track to meet preliminary target specs with our phosphorescent blue by year-end,” said CEO Steven Abramson.
Convergence in its remote control and home automation businesses has a lot of revenue potential for Universal Electronics, Inc., said CEO Paul Arling on the company’s Q1 earnings call Thursday. The company has launched a couple of HVAC, security and home automation products in “small quantities,” and that will ramp over this year into next, he said.
Fubo’s late March price increase for its base package, to $69.99 a month, didn’t factor into its lower subscriber guidance for the year, said CEO David Gandler on a Thursday Q1 earnings call, citing seasonality instead. The $5 monthly increase should drive the bulk of fuboTV’s 2022 revenue growth, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote investors Friday.
The FCC should require licensees to collect and report diversity data from the companies that provide their media content, including on streaming services, said a petition Thursday from programmer Fuse Media and several public interest groups including the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Public Knowledge and Common Cause.
Dish Network doesn’t think it needs to ask for an "extension” of its FCC deadline to bring coverage of its mobile 5G network to 20% of the U.S. population by mid-June, said Chairman Charlie Ergen on a Q1 earnings call Friday. “We’re still on track” to meet the deadline, he said, conceding “we’re not spiking the football yet.”