U.S. consumers plan to spend an average of $627 on gifts this holiday season, a 12 percent increase from 2017, said the Conference Board Thursday. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 homes for the board in October and found 15.1 percent said they plan to spend more on electronics this year than last, while 55.8 percent said they expect to spend about the same, 29.1 percent less, it said. Roughly 12 percent of consumers overall plan to spend more this year on holiday gifts, with 65 percent planning to spend about the same, 24 percent planning to spend less, it said. More than a third (37 percent) said they plan to buy at least half their gifts online, it said.

Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets declined sharply in October from September, according to preliminary Conference Board data released Tuesday. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 homes for the board through Oct. 18 and found 12.5 percent plan to buy a new TV in the next six months, down from 14.2 percent in September, 14.5 percent in August and 12.8 percent in October 2017, said the board. The overall consumer confidence index increased again in October. Consumer confidence “remains at levels last seen in the fall of 2000,” it said. “Consumers’ assessment of present-day conditions remains quite positive, primarily due to strong employment growth.”

Perception of poor value is consumers' top trigger for changing, downgrading or canceling pay TV, Parks Associates blogged Thursday. Among households that made pay-TV changes in past 12 months, a third were cord cutters, and 10 percent of switchers or cord shavers said they plan to use paid OTT services as a substitute or alternative. “The primary driver for pay-TV cancellation and downgrades continues to revolve around pricing and perceived value,” said analyst Brett Sappington. “When video services with good quality are available for under $15, it forces operators to justify an $80 [per month] pay-TV bill.”

China is the largest market for IoT spending, augmented and virtual reality and robotics, while the U.S. “continues to dominate spending on software-driven markets,” said IDC Tuesday. By 2022, China will account for nearly 40 percent of worldwide robotics spending, with almost $80 billion annually, it said. It does more than a quarter of global spending on IoT and AR/VR. The U.S. does nearly 70 percent of artificial intelligence spending and more than half on big data and analytics, said IDC. It estimates U.S. annual spending on AI will grow to nearly $50 billion by 2022, as big data and analytics investments reach $140 billion.

U.S. demand for skilled tech workers is rising, but tech company optimism for finding the right talent is waning, said CTA Monday. It canvassed 293 tech “leaders” May-July who “identify” as CTA members or CES attendees, and 92 percent expect they will need more employees with technical skills in the next five years. That’s a 6 percentage-point increase from a year earlier. Asked how they expect finding qualified candidates to fill jobs will change in the next five years, 7 percent think it will be easier, a 2 percentage-point decline. Fifty-nine percent expect it will get tougher to find the right talent. Other findings: (1) Software development skills are highest in demand for new tech employees, followed by data analytics, engineering, artificial intelligence and systems architecture skills; (2) Back-office operations likely will be the most automated in the next five years, followed by warehouse operations, customer relations and manufacturing; (3) Internships are the most common practice tech companies are using to find qualified talent, followed by advertising on social media, using online job portals like Zip Recruiter and working with professional associations.

Podcast listening is “booming” in the U.K., with nearly 6 million adults listening weekly, double that of five years ago, said Ofcom Friday. The increase spans all age groups, but the steepest growth is now among young adults ages 15-24, with one in five (18.7 percent) now listening to podcasts every week, it said. Other findings: (1) Comedy is the most popular podcast genre; (2) While only 29 percent of terrestrial radio listeners are under 35, this rises to 49 percent for podcasts; (3) Nearly all podcast listeners (96 percent) also listen to the radio each week, though live radio commands a much lower share of their total listening activity (48 percent) than adults overall (75 percent).

Radio faces increased competition from digital sources for ad dollars and little financial growth, Wells Fargo analyst Davis Hebert said Wednesday on a finance panel at the NAB Radio Show. “Radio has slightly underperformed” in grabbing its share of ad spending since the recession, Hebert said: “The reality is digital is taking its share.” Radio could perform better going forward because media consumption and consumer use of audio through podcasts and smart speakers are on the rise, he said. “The audio pie is growing,” he said. All the panelists noted the growing use of smart speakers and podcast listenership as important opportunities for radio. Smart speakers are “the new battleground,” said Townsquare CEO Dhruv Prasad. Hubbard CEO Ginny Morris said Hubbard is investing “deeply” in podcasting and said radio should gain a foothold in smart speakers now to prepare for the migration of smart speakers to car dashboards. Fewer people are buying radios, Prasad said. “We've got to win and make sure our content cuts through the noise.”

Consumer intentions to buy new TV sets declined in September from August, according to preliminary Conference Board data released Tuesday. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 homes for the board through Sept. 14 and found 14 percent plan to buy a new TV in the next six months, down from 14.5 percent in August, but up from 11.2 percent in July and 13.2 percent in September 2017, said the board. The overall consumer confidence index increased in September and “hovers” near an 18-year high, it said: “These historically high confidence levels should continue to support healthy consumer spending, and should be welcome news for retailers as they begin gearing up for the holiday season.”

Wireless charging, flexible displays, headphones and video gear were prominent at Pepcom’s Holiday Spectacular event in New York Thursday. Mophie showed sub-$100 portable Qi docks and portable power station products. Its Charge Stream Pad+ has fast charge capability for Apple (7.5 watts) and Samsung (9 watt) devices, sending the fastest charge each can handle vs. the 5-watt output of a standard Qi charger, it said. In its wireless power station line, Mophie showed a 10,000 mAh version ($99) and 6,040 mAh model ($79) for portable Qi charging. Mophie spokesman Jeff DuBois said the company is looking to diversify its wireless charging beyond Qi and is studying “point-to-point” options. Products in the queue for 2019 will likely all be contact-based, DuBois said, but the company is looking long term at other options that don’t require the exact coil positioning of the inductive Qi technology. On whether Mophie is working on a product similar to Apple’s yet-to-surface AirPower pad, teased at the company’s September 2017 event, DuBois said such a product is “easier said than done” because of the need for strategic placement of coils on the pad. Elsewhere, flexible display company Royole showed what it called the thinnest display to date, measuring .01 mm. A representative demonstrated the 7.5-inch OLED display on a top hat to show one of the more unusual applications for technology typically targeted for phones and car dashboards. The company began production in Shenzhen, China, in June, and has announced capacity of 50 million units a year, a spokesman said. Royole earmarked 2018 limited-edition embedded units for purchase via the company website, he said, at $899 on a T-shirt and $1,399 on a top hat/T-shirt combo; built-in Wi-Fi enables a wearer to send photos or videos to the bendable screen, he said. The company also makes headphones and a smart writing pad. Sengled extended its LED smart bulb line with a Wi-Fi version ($20) to join its ZigBee-based lineup, said smart lighting Product Manager Robert Tang. Wi-Fi Bulbs are voice-controllable via Alexa and Google Assistant for functions including changing color, turning on and off, and dimming, he said. The company’s ZigBee-based Element Plus ($41) tunable bulbs can transition from 2700 color temperature to 6500, he said. ViewSonic demo'd its 1.8-pound 854 x 480 DLP projector. The M1 ($299-$399) has a 5.8 x 5-inch footprint and measures an inch tall, has a 40-inch throw distance, projects up to a 100-inch image and offers six hours of battery life, a spokeswoman said. The unit's Harman Kardon speaker logo dwarfed the projector’s tiny ViewSonic tag.

Total U.S. revenue from recorded music jumped 10 percent in 2018's first half to $4.6 billion, from the same 2017 period, said RIAA’s midyear report Thursday. With streaming music generating 75 percent of industry revenue, “overall market trends in the first half of 2018 continued to reflect the music industry’s rapid transition from unit based physical and digital sales towards streaming music sources,” said the association. Revenue from streaming music grew 28 percent to $3.4 billion, it said. “Paid subscriptions have become the biggest format for music by revenue.” Growth of 33 percent brought total subscription revenue to $2.5 billion, so while 75 percent of industry revenue came from streaming, 75 percent of that came from paid subscriptions, it said. In physical formats, the industry shipped 18.6 million CDs in the first half, a 47 percent year-over-year decline, and CD dollar shipments declined 42 percent to $246 million, said RIAA. Vinyl saw an upsurge, rising 13 percent in units to 8.1 million and 13 percent in dollars to just under $200 million, the group said.