The People brand is launching a video flash brief for Amazon’s Echo Show, it announced Wednesday. It billed video flash briefs as a way to bring a video component to Alexa, allowing users to watch video briefings, and see music lyrics and security cameras. Jen Wong, chief operating officer of the parent, said Time Inc. “is dedicated to reaching our consumers whenever and wherever they want to connect” as the company “aggressively expand[s] into video” with custom content.
When EPA releases the final draft of its V8.0 Energy Star TV spec, it will forego imposing the tighter restrictions it floated last month of requiring that the energy-saving automatic brightness control feature be enabled in all preset picture modes for a TV to qualify (see 1705160048), representatives said on a Friday conference call, the slides for which were posted Wednesday. EPA expects to release the final draft by the end of the week, Verena Radulovic, Energy Star product manager for consumer electronics, emailed us.
Households are buying fewer traditional CE devices than in the past, Parks Associates reported Tuesday, citing a drop in purchase rates from 87 percent in 2008 to 74 percent last year. "Consumers are satisfied with many of their existing products, provided they are working well," said President Tricia Parks. Consumers value their connected CE products, but there’s “no big purchase buzz except for personal assistants with voice,” Parks said, identifying the Amazon Echo for its “wow factor” that’s translating to consumer adoption. Broadband households own an average 8.1 connected CE products; nearly half of all broadband households have a smart TV; ownership of game consoles dropped to 49 percent in 2017 from 58 percent last year; and 70 percent of streaming media player owners report using their devices one to three times weekly.
Facebook has deleted about 66,000 posts reported as hate speech every week globally or about 288,000 posts per month, blogged Richard Allan, vice president-public policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Tuesday. "But it’s clear we’re not perfect when it comes to enforcing our policy. Often there are close calls -- and too often we get it wrong." Sometimes the posts are obvious but sometimes it isn't clear "because the words themselves are ambiguous, the intent behind them is unknown or the context around them is unclear," he said. Allan said the current definition of hate speech is "anything that directly attacks" people's "protected characteristics" such as ethnicity, gender, gender identity, national origin, race, religious affiliation, serious disability or disease, sex and sexual orientation. But there's "no universally accepted answer" when the line is crossed and national hate speech laws vary significantly, added Allan. Meanwhile, CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted that the social media site now has 2 billion users.
Pandora CEO Tim Westergren stepped down, among other changes in a Tuesday announcement. Chief Financial Officer Naveen Chopra will be interim CEO while the board begins an immediate search for a new chief, said the company. Also leaving: President Mike Herring and Chief Marketing Officer Nick Bartle. Added to the board, from which co-founder Westergren left, is Jason Hirschhorn, former Sling Media president and CEO of digital content creation company Redef. Multiple changes in the leadership team signal “likely forthcoming changes in the company’s strategy as well,” Dougherty's Steven Frankel wrote investors, citing SiriusXM’s 19 percent investment in Pandora this month (see 1706090005). The company is “desperately in need of a front man,” wrote Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter. The analyst wrote SiriusXM “may exert greater influence than was previously expected” by pivoting from the current strategy, which could include scaling back on on-demand subscription ambitions. Pandora director Roger Faxon said the board over the past few weeks took steps to “refocus and reinforce Pandora” and said the Plus and Premium subscription offerings are “new, integral parts of our arsenal.” The transition of music listeners from traditional terrestrial radio to “more dynamic and flexible offerings” is a “massive opportunity,” said Faxon. In the Tuesday Pandora announcement, Westergren said he came back to the CEO role last year to “drive transformation across the business,” and that included renegotiated relationships with music companies, the on-demand launch and tech innovations in the advertising business. Pandora is “perfectly poised for its next chapter,” he said. Pachter noted the four remaining board members took action leading to the departures of Westergren, Herring and Bartle, suggesting they were “dissatisfied with Pandora’s strategy and felt a change was in order.”
By the end of 2021, expect to see ever-faster declines of traditional multichannel subscriptions, to 82.3 million, down 10.8 million households over five years, Kagan said in a news release Monday. Its projections through 2021 also indicate nearly 11 million households subscribing to virtual services and households relying solely on over-the-top delivery of self-aggregated online content hitting close to 18 million, or 14 percent of occupied households. It said households with traditional multichannel service still will be in the majority, but a quarter of occupied households will have an alternative service this year, rising to one-third by 2021, Kagan said.
Draft video description rules set for commissioners' July 13 agenda would raise the amount of described video description 75 percent but don't include provisions supported by the previous administration to expand the scope of the video requirement, according to the draft order (see 1706220050). The draft would increase the amount of described programming on each included network from 50 hours per quarter to 87.5, and allow any programming between 6 a.m. and midnight to count, but it doesn’t take up a number of other proposals that were contained in the draft NPRM issued under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler. Rules that would have expanded the number of networks and a “no backsliding policy” -- both of which were opposed by Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly -- aren't part of the draft on circulation.
Viewers disengage with storylines and react negatively to low-quality streaming incidents such as buffering “regardless of the brand or interest in the content,” Akamai reported Wednesday. Negative emotions rise 16 percent and engagement falls 20 percent as a result of poor streaming as measured by biometric measurement tools including facial coding and skin conductance, said the company. Some 76 percent of participants said they would stop using a streaming service if issues such as buffering occurred several times, it said. The study, conducted by Sensum, used various testing procedures including sensory, implicit and explicit responses from more than 1,200 participants.
Pointing to pervasive gender stereotypes in TV and movies, Common Sense issued gender equity guidelines Tuesday for content creators. Media content aimed at kids shouldn't have gender stereotypes, it said, among other recommendations.
Despite Apple’s HomePod announcement (see 1706060023) and reveal of 27 million Apple Music subscribers, Spotify continues to lead the subscription streaming music market, Futuresource blogged Tuesday. Spotify, despite “challenging finances, contract negotiations, increased competition and continued criticism” of its free tier, is the “go-to music streaming subscription service in many countries,” said the researcher. Spotify is approaching 100 million free users globally and had roughly double the paid subscribers of Apple Music in March, it said. Amazon had about 60 million Prime members in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Japan with access to a limited selection of advertising-free streaming tracks, it noted.