consumer electronics

If you want to buy a DVD or Blu-ray at Best Buy, you’ll soon be out of luck. The box store chain has reportedly begun to remove physical media and displays from its store shelves, according to reports on X, formerly Twitter. The social media posts come after Best Buy’s October confirmation that it would stop selling physical media in the first quarter of 2024. The decision was made in response to the mass audience migration to streaming services and digital downloads.

Roku beat Wall Street expectations for the second quarter of 2023 after reporting a smaller than expected net loss of $107.6 million, or 76 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research were expecting a loss of $1.28 per share.

Smart TVs in the U.S. have reached a milestone with a new study from  Hub Entertainment Research showing that American homes now own an estimated 204 million smart TV sets, breaking the 200 million mark for the first time. The fifth annual wave of Hub Entertainment Research’s “Connected Home” study found that 77% of TV households say they own a smart TV, up from 66% three years ago. Well over a majority of all TV sets — six in 10 (61%) — are now reported to be smart sets, up from 45% in 2020.

Amazon may be laying off thousands of employees, but it’s still selling a ton of stuff — including streaming devices and connected TVs. The company said sales of Fire TV streaming devices and smart TVs have now surpassed 200 million units to date. Amazon, which doles out such stats selectively, previously announced a milestone of 150 million Fire TV devices sold in January 2022.

A little over a year ago, one of the country’s biggest broadcasters made an unexpected transaction: E.W. Scripps, which operates dozens of ABC, NBC and Fox stations as well as a handful of nationwide broadcast networks, quietly bought Nuvyyo, a Canadian startup best known for its Tablo DVR devices for cord-cutters. The acquisition, which hasn’t been previously reported, is part of Scripps’ multibillion-dollar bet on acquiring stations, networks and spectrum for an ATSC 3.0-powered antenna TV future.

A Vizio executive says the company is not overly concerned with competition from Roku after the streaming platform announced its intention to design and make its own smart TVs. Speaking at the 25th annual Needham Growth Conference on Tuesday, Vizio Chief Revenue and Strategic Growth Officer Mike O’Donnell said his electronics company has been in the television space for more than two decades, and competition from other companies “is nothing new for us.”

Fox News Media will be an official media partner at the upcoming giant tech conference.

Consumers will gain expanded access to affordable accessory devices that will bring NextGen TV service to sets not equipped with ATSC 3.0 tuners.

How you can benefit from the return of old-school antennas and free over-the-air TV.

The Consumer Technology Association said on the show’s closing day that more than 40,000 people attended the multi-day event on the Las Vegas Strip. That’s less than a quarter of the more than 170,000 the CTA said were there for its 2020 convention.

CES 2022 just became one day shorter. The Consumer Technology Association announced Friday that CES will now close on Jan. 7 as a safety measure amid concerns about spiking COVID-19 infection rates. While the CTA is touting that 2,200 exhibitors are still confirmed to attend in person, major exhibitors like Microsoft, Google, AMD and Intel have either canceled or modified their in-person CES plans.

Hisense debuted its first Roku-powered 8K smart TV on the shelves (virtual and otherwise) of Best Buy and Amazon earlier this month. And already, we’re seeing a trend re-emerge that defined the 4K smart TV era — smart TV’s made by Chinese manufacturers, enabled with the Roku OS, undercutting more expensive Korean rivals.

In a surprise move, Samsung Electronics replaced the heads of its three major business units and merged the company’s mobile and consumer electronics businesses into a single unit.

It all comes down to having power over what Americans watch and how.

The announcement comes after Delta-leery sponsors pulled out of NAB’s live Vegas trade show next month, and SCTE walked October’s Cable-Tec Expo back to virtual.

Broadcaster spots from the Pearl TV consortium promoting the ATSC 3.0 advanced broadcast TV transmission standard have drawn consumer interest, according to a Magid survey, including over better sound, which has become a major differentiator. The study found that a majority of respondents (60%) said they were “likely“ to purchase a TV set with NextGen TV technology within the next year after seeing the Pearl TV spots promoting NextGen TV.