FuboTV is now available on LG webOS smart TVs dating to the 2018 model year, said LG Monday. Up to six users on a subscription can personalize their fuboTV experiences for recommendations and a customized guide that can be used to “favorite” channels. Users can have their own sets of recordings, which don't expire, it said. LG TV owners can get a free trial by scanning the QR code on the fuboTV app.
New FaceTime features are designed to address limitations in video calling to make interactions more natural. Spatial Audio, introduced last month in Apple Music, will help FaceTime conversations “flow as easily as they do face to face,” Senior Vice President-Software Engineering Craig Federighi told Apple’s virtual Worldwide Developers Conference Monday. Apple is extending FaceTime calls outside the ecosystem, letting Apple customers send links to Windows and Android users. They can send FaceTime links in messages, email, WhatsApp or in a calendar invite, said Federighi. Apple named Disney+, ESPN+, HBO Max, Hulu, MasterClass, Paramount+, Pluto TV, TikTok, NBA and Twitch as services integrating SharePlay into their apps. The 75-million track music catalog will be available in Lossless, the company said.
Connected TV viewing leveled off after being “pulled forward” due to COVID-19 in 2020, reported Leichtman Research Group Friday. Some 39% of adults in U.S. TV households watch video daily on an internet-connected TV, vs. 40% in 2020 and 31% in 2019. Just over a third of pay-TV subscribers watch video daily via a connected TV vs. 50% of non-pay-TV viewers. Some 43% of TVs in U.S. households are smart models, up from 32% two years ago. Fifty-five percent of TV households have at least one stand-alone streaming device, vs. 49% in 2019. Households with at least one connected TV device inched up to 82% from 80% last year and 74% in 2019. The April-May survey was of 1,250 consumers online and about 750 via phone.
True wireless headsets (TWS) will be among the winningest sectors in the smart accessories market as the global economy tries to recover from the pandemic, reported ABI Research Thursday. Wireless headset shipments will exceed a billion units in 2025, with TWS generating half the sales, it said. ABI estimates TWS will rise at a 27.9% compound annual growth rate through 2025. Lower device costs, combined with technological innovations such as Bluetooth Low Energy audio, “will drive demand and unlock new use cases and applications such as location-based audio sharing,” it said.
The average notebook PC's “refresh cycle” is roughly a year and a half “quicker” than for desktops, creating demand that's compounding the public’s hunger for laptops for remote work and learning connectivity, Dell Technologies founder-CEO Michael Dell told a Bernstein virtual investor conference Wednesday. Average selling prices for notebooks “are going up as people want bigger displays and more capable systems,” he said. “The oldest PC in your house can't really do a Zoom meeting.” Dell is confident that demand in the PC supply chain is genuine and not the result of “double ordering,” he said. “The thing that we watch very closely is the cancellation rate of orders in the backlog.” As lead times increased, “we have not seen cancellation rates go up, and so we are delivering record numbers of PCs and the output continues to grow,” he said. “If you were going to see double ordering, you would also see cancellations coming through the backlog. We're just not seeing that.” Backlogs “are certainly higher than normal, higher than we would like, and the pricing environment has been kind of what you would expect in a situation like this,” said Dell.
Eighty-two percent of U.S. broadband households buy over-the-top video service, reported Parks Associates Thursday. High penetration is leading virtual MVPDs to explore new strategies, including expanded IP and AI-powered enhancements, said analyst Steve Nason. Service stacking is trending higher, with 46% of households subscribing to four or more OTT services, said Matt Smith, Symphony MediaAI vice president-business development, saying vMVPDs wonder “when, not if, the tipping point will come.” Preventing churn requires “solving the industry’s core challenge: making it easy for consumers to find exactly what they want,” said Scott Hancock, Plex vice president-marketing. Parks holds its virtual Future of Video conference Wednesday.
After holding its latest Prime Day event in October due to inventory shortages caused by e-commerce demand during COVID-19, Amazon stuffed this year’s into Q2 for the first time. The June 21-22 event was announced Wednesday. Amazon teamed with Instagram and TikTok for previews of Prime Day deals.
Fitbit introduced a Minions-themed activity and sleep tracker for kids 6 and older that encourages them to be active and build healthy habits, said the company Tuesday. The water-resistant Ace 3 Special Edition: Minions ($79) sends hourly alerts to remind users to move. Parent View lets parents view and manage activity, it said.
Warner Bros. Discovery will be the new name of AT&T’s WarnerMedia and Discovery when they combine next year, said Discovery CEO David Zaslav Tuesday. The companies announced last month (see 2105170051) the $43 billion deal that will give AT&T’s shareholders 71%. For more, see here.
The “big deals” with Amazon buying MGM and with WarnerMedia/Discovery are a “resounding affirmation” of streaming and “about the value of content” and of brands, said Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer on a quarterly call Thursday. Lionsgate/Starz won’t play in streaming mergers and acquisitions because “we've got a benefit in terms of lack of disruption here at the company,” he said: “The key thing that we're going to do is keep our head down, and just keep executing on our plan.” Starz grew subscribers by 23% year over year, finishing fiscal Q4 ended March 31 with 29.5 million global accounts, said Feltheimer. Starz growth for the year took Lionsgate “past the digital inflection point of more over-the-top than linear subscribers,” he said. Lionsgate surpassed the “milestone” of 10 million U.S. streaming subs, he said. Lionsgate sees the streaming industry as “unfolding” into separate “broad-based” advertising-supported VOD and premium VOD tiers of services, said Starz CEO Jeff Hirsch. “The second tier is where we sit, which is in that premium service as a very edgy, non-ad-supported, really tailored service.”