Best Buy is celebrating its 50th birthday with 50 “Black Friday-like” deals during a 50-hour span from 10 p.m. CDT Thursday through 11:59 p.m. Saturday, it said in a Thursday announcement. Deals are available in stores and online with free two-day shipping on almost all sale items, said Best Buy. Ahead of the expected launch of a new MacBook Pro next month, the sale includes $150 off select MacBook Pros, with students able to snip another $150 off under Best Buy’s Student Deals program. Other electronics deals: $400 off a Samsung 65-inch 4K Ultra HD TV, $180 off Beats Studio wireless headphones and $50 off a Garmin Vivosmart HR activity tracker. Customers can get an iPhone 6s for a buck, or an iPhone 6s Plus for $99, with two-year activation on Sprint or Verizon Wireless, or they can get a $200 gift card with purchase of either iPhone 6s model with activation of an AT&T Next plan, said Best Buy. Richard Schulze opened the company’s first store on Aug. 22, 1966, in Roseville, Minnesota, under the Sound of Music name before changing the name to Best Buy in 1983.

Retransmission consent negotiations between Dish Network and Tribune are continuing, but a blackout remains in place, Dish said in a news release in which it also endorsed programs by Sinclair and NAB to give consumers free over-the-air (OTA) antennas. “The country’s 90 million pay-TV customers, all of whom pay retransmission fees for local broadcast stations, are frustrated by rising costs and channel blackouts,” said Warren Schlichting, Dish executive vice president-marketing. “Sinclair is on the right track for consumers and we’d encourage Tribune to follow its example.” Dish endorsed its traditional opponents on retrans -- Sinclair, NAB, Antennas Direct and TVfreedom.org -- for handing out $1 million worth of free OTA antennas in 60 cities. Dish gave out $7 million worth of antennas since the Tribune blackout began in June, the release said. “Complementing the pay-TV experience, which includes the increasing adoption of streaming services like Sling TV, Sony Vue, Hulu and Netflix, is good business and may drive a solution to the otherwise compounding problem of ever-rising retransmission consent fees for local TV,” said Schlichting. Tribune didn't comment.

Facebook said it's providing expanded tools that will help users better control the advertising they see and address the increasing use of ad blocking software. In a blog post, Andrew Bosworth, Facebook vice president-ads and business platform, wrote that Facebook is making ad preferences easier to use. "If you don’t want to see ads about a certain interest like travel or cats, you can remove the interest from your ad preferences," he wrote. Users can also stop viewing ads from businesses and other organizations that have added them to their customer lists, said Bosworth. He said the company will offer "more powerful controls" to "begin showing ads on Facebook desktop for people who currently use ad blocking software." Some companies pay ad blocking companies to unblock ads, but Bosworth said Facebook will remain a free service with ads supporting its mission. "Rather than paying ad blocking companies to unblock the ads we show -- as some of these companies have invited us to do in the past -- we’re putting control in people’s hands with our updated ad preferences and our other advertising controls," he wrote.

Comcast should drop its Xfinity-related advertising claims that it "delivers the fastest internet in America" and the "fastest, most reliable in-home WiFi," said the National Advertising Division (NAD), the investigative unit of the ad industry’s self-regulation system. NAD said in a news release Tuesday that Verizon challenged the Comcast broadband ad claims, plus others by the cable ISP about the telco's phone service. NAD said the Comcast ads don't limit their claims to a particular tier, though Xfinity offers various speeds in different tiers, and relying on Ookla's Speedtest application data for substantiating its claims isn't a good means of substantiating overall superior speed performance assertions. NAD also said Comcast should end or modify its direct-mail campaign about Verizon's phone service because it's potentially confusing to consumers. NAD said Comcast indicated it plans to appeal the findings to the National Advertising Review Board. Comcast didn't comment Tuesday.

NBCUniversal will produce original episodic shows for Snapchat under a multiyear content and advertising deal, NBCU said in a news release Monday. NBCU said it will "reimagine highly successful television franchises and produce them specifically for Snapchat and a mobile-first audience." NBCU said the first such Snapchat content will be The Voice on Snapchat, which will debut Aug. 22. The unit of Comcast also said it will develop and sell ad packages using Snapchat ad products in its sponsorship, mobile and video products.

Housewares retailer Bed Bath & Beyond undersold Amazon Monday on its Alexa-based Echo and Tap voice-enabled speakers. The deal was offered online and in select stores, said Bed Bath & Beyond. Prices for the Monday-only deal were $129 for the Echo, down from $179, and $79 for the Tap, down from $129. The Amazon-branded devices were selling for regular price at Amazon.com Monday morning. B&H Photo Video was also selling the Tap for $79 and the Echo for $129 Monday.

T-Mobile saw a positive in National Advertising Review Board (NARB) panel recommendations on the carrier’s “Ditch and Switch” campaign (see 1608030066), a spokesman emailed. “We’re pleased that the NARB found that our ‘Ditch and Switch’ advertising campaign is clear and accurate, while providing good guidelines for future ads.”

Samsung and carriers began taking preorders Wednesday for the Samsung Galaxy Note7, sweetening the deal for the pricey premium phone with a free Samsung Gear Fit2 (valued at $179, but selling at Best Buy for $149) or a 256 GB memory card (valued at $249 but selling at Amazon for $199) while supplies last. Terms are $0 down and $36/month over 24 months, said the Verizon website. Verizon is offering a waived activation fee to online customers and will credit up to $300 on a trade-in of select working devices for new activations only. AT&T Wireless gave an $879 retail price broken out to $0 down and $29.34 over 30 months to qualified buyers. It's offering a buy-one-get-one deal for the phone under its Next plan ($70 minimum data plan per month), with the second phone free after $695 in payments, said the website. Qualcomm, meanwhile, took credit for technologies in the Note7 in a news release Wednesday saying the phone uses the Snapdragon 820 processor with an integrated X12 LTE modem, Adreno 530 graphics processor, 680 DSP and Haven, which it called a “secure foundation” for iris scanning. The Snapdragon 820 supports 4K video capture and playback and support for slow motion video at 240 frames per second, Qualcomm said.

On the Friday before the Rio Olympics, TV makers and retailers were noticeably quiet about the opening of the games Sunday, traditionally a high-profile viewing event that spurs TV purchases. That’s likely due to strict trademark protection laws the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) promised to enforce in a letter to non-sponsor companies last month, said a report in Adweek. Sponsorship guidelines “have helped some unofficial Olympic sponsors leverage the games in their advertising efforts,” the report said, but companies that aren’t official sponsors like Panasonic and Samsung could face legal action for creating social media posts themed around the Rio games. Forbidden to non-sponsors is the use of hashtags that include Olympics trademarks such as #TeamUSA or #Rio2016, it said. The USOC letter warned businesses: "Do not create social media posts that are Olympic themed, that feature Olympic trademarks, that contain Games imagery or congratulate Olympic performance unless you are an official sponsor as specified in the Social Media Section." Phrases that can’t be used in marketing: Olympic, Olympian, Team USA, Future Olympian, Gateway to gold, Go for the gold, Let the games begin, Paralympic, Pan Am Games, Olympiad, Paralympiad and Pan-American, said the letter. The USOC didn’t comment.

Best Buy began taking preorders for a 32 GB Moto Z Force Droid and is running a promotion giving customers who buy and activate the smartphone on a two-year Verizon contract a free JBL SoundBoost Moto Mod speaker that snaps to the back of the phone. It's also whacking $200 off the price of the device, bringing it to $99 on contract. “Coming soon” at Best Buy is the Moto Z Droid, available for $1 with the JBL Moto Mod speaker, to customers who agree to a two-year contract, Best Buy said. The promotion runs through Aug. 13, a spokesman emailed us. Verizon is running its own promotion offering 40 percent off additional Mods after consumers purchase their first. It said phones would be delivered by Thursday.