TCL teased by email Thursday a one-day sale Saturday at BestBuy.com and stores on TCL P-Series 55-inch 4K Roku TVs. The P605 streaming TV will be discounted by $100 to $499, it said. Features include Dolby Vision HDR, 72-zone HDR contrast control and wide color gamut.
Google could carry about 40 percent of all local digital advertising across all markets in 2018, with its local search advertising and YouTube’s local advertising exceeding $19 billion in revenue nationwide, said BIA Advisory Services Monday. BIA expects local Google revenue to exceed $27 billion in the U.S. by 2022. “By comparison, local radio and television advertising revenues are projected to be relatively flat over time, while print media advertising continues its decline,” said BIA Advisory Services Chief Economist Mark Fratrik.
WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum’s departure after clashing with parent company Facebook could be the “starting point for more aggressive monetization of WhatsApp” and increased advertising, Barclays analysts said Tuesday. Barclays “sized the opportunity conservatively at $11 [billion] in incremental revenue from [Facebook] Messenger and WhatsApp revenue by 2020.”
Samsung is discounting its 55- (now $1,599) and 65-inch ($2,399) Frame TVs at Samsung.com by $400 through May 12 in a Mother's Day promotion. The Frame TV can display artwork from Samsung's Art Store when not being used for TV viewing. Samsung's art library holds more than 600 works, including digitized artwork from established artists and high-profile galleries and museums, said the company. Optional bezels are available for the TVs.
The broadcast TV industry's 12- to 18-month outlook “remains stable,” Moody's emailed investors Monday. “Companies will continue to face serious headwinds as declining viewership drives down advertising revenue and consequently hinders earnings growth.” Ad revenue will continue to experience negative growth, analyst Jason Cuomo said. "Broadcasters' earnings are heavily influenced by the health of the advertising market, given their revenue mix is still weighted toward ad revenues, but today this ad-supported business model is under attack." Viewership of the top-four news channels is declining, and broadcasters are losing market share to Google and Facebook, Moody’s said. The ad market problems are being balanced by retransmission consent rates, “up by approximately 23% in 2017, much higher than previously anticipated,” Moody’s said. “Cyclical events, including the Olympics and mid-term Congressional elections, will provide an additional lift for broadcasters in 2018.”
Nearly 60 percent of marketers' digital advertising budgets is devoted to digital video, the Interactive Advertising Bureau said Monday. Digital video investment has been “climbing steadily” since 2016 and is projected to be 68 percent of digital advertising budgets by the end of the year, IAB said.
In an announcement tied to Earth Day, Apple promoted its trade-in program called GiveBack, offering Apple store gift cards in return for used devices, including non-Apple brands. For every device received at Apple stores and at Apple.com via the Apple GiveBack program through April 30, the company will make a donation to Conservation International, it said. Apple touted its latest disassembly robot, dubbed Daisy, calling it “the most efficient way to reclaim more of the valuable materials stored in iPhone.” Daisy, capable of disassembling nine versions of iPhone and sorting components for recycling, is the product of “years of R&D” and incorporates parts based on Apple's first disassembly robot launched in 2016, it said. The robot can take apart up to 200 iPhone devices per hour, removing and sorting components, “so that Apple can recover materials that traditional recyclers can’t -- and at a higher quality,” said the company. Trade-in values, meanwhile, top out at $315 for phones, $1,000 for computers, $285 for tablets and $175 for smartwatches. A calculator on the Apple website gave us a trade-in value of $245 for our iPhone 7 based on questions about capacity and condition. The iPhone 8 and X weren’t prepopulated in the calculator. The latest generation Samsung device in the calculator was the 128 GB S6 edge plus, with a trade-in value of $150 in an Apple gift card and the suggestion: “Why not put it toward a new iPhone?” Products that aren’t eligible for credit can be recycled, said Apple. Other products -- including Apple TV, hard drives, cables, headphones, AirPorts, iPods, HomePods, displays, printers and scanners, keyboards and other accessories -- are eligible for recycling through a third-party recycler, it said, and consumers provide addresses to receive a prepaid shipping label.
Kellogg seeks a waiver of FCC rules that require that unintentional radiator devices, including Class B devices, get equipment verification before being marketed or distributed to the public. “The low-powered novelty device in question poses no risk of harmful interference,” Kellogg said. The maker of Corn Flakes, Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies and other food products said it plans a “cutting-edge promotional feature” and requires a waiver. “The promotion consists of a limited-edition cereal box with a seven inch video screen affixed within the box itself,” the company said. “The box serves as a frame for the screen, allowing consumers to stand the box upright and watch video content while eating cereal.” Kellogg is sourcing the video players from Wealth Land Electronics, a small Chinese manufacturer of novelty items that "does not have the resources or capability to conduct the tests required to support verification of the novelty device, and testing by an independent lab would be costly and time consuming," it said. Kellogg "would need to begin marketing the product in May" to tie in promotionally with a "feature film" debuting in early June, it said.
Comcast should end ads stating or suggesting DirecTV customers will be subject to big, undisclosed, unavoidable price increases when signing up for the DirecTV Choice programming package, the National Advertising Division said Tuesday. NAD said DirecTV owner AT&T challenged the broadcast and online ads, and the Comcast assertions are unsupported. NAD said Comcast indicated it will comply with the recommendation.
AmazonCrossing, publisher of translated fiction, is offering U.S. readers free translations of nine Kindle e-books for download through April 24 in honor of World Book Day, it said Tuesday. The publisher has a target of reaching a million readers to promote the “the power to connect” across language, country and culture.