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Android TV Users are Seeing Ads after Latest Update

posted by martyb on Friday April 05 2019, @12:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the how-many-are-seeing-red? dept.

NotSanguine writes:

According to Doug Lynch at xda-developers.com:

Android TV owners recently received an update across multiple platforms that have started to display sponsored content with a "Promotional Channels' title in the launcher of the Android TV software. We're currently seeing reports that it has shown up in Sony smart TVs, the Mi Box 3 from Xiaomi, NVIDIA Shield TV, and others. This has been an incredibly off-putting change for a lot of Android TV users. What makes matters worse is people were unable to disable the ads at first, but Reddit user Felisens seems to have figured out how to disable them.

[...] Update: Google's response

A Google spokesperson gave us the following statement:

Android TV is committed to optimizing and personalizing the entertainment experience at home. As we explore new opportunities to engage the user community, we're running a pilot program to surface sponsored content on the Android TV home screen.

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 05 2019, @02:07PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 05 2019, @02:07PM (#824896) Journal

    I recently read, just this week, an article with a graph of various streaming TV platforms. To my surprise Android TV was about 50 ish percent. Why, because a lot of Chinese "smart tv" manufacturers use a forked open source Android TV with no Play store, but with preinstalled apps for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Spotify, etc. This forked "android tv" probably doesn't phone home to Google's mother ship, but to a different mother ship instead.

    Apple TV was bigger than RoKu which also surprised me.

    I wish I had a link.

    --
    When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @03:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @03:40PM (#824956)

    As in huge piles of it.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by EvilSS on Friday April 05 2019, @05:24PM

    by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 05 2019, @05:24PM (#825012)
    Apple TV being bigger than Roku is shocking actually. So much so that I would actually have to question it. Roku is older, has a decent size fan base, and is even built into some popular budget TVs. Up until recently Apple TV wasn't that great. 4K Dolby Vision support is about the only big selling point. I know a bunch of people got them through that DirectTV Now deal where they gave them away with 3 months pre-paid (hell I got 2 from it) but still. I find that hard to believe.

    I also wonder if Android TV includes Amazon Fire sticks. Fire OS is a derivative of Android and those sticks being hackable to get Kodi on them makes them quite popular.