Roku introduced new ad products this week at the IAB NewFronts, touting opportunities to advertise on Roku’s home screen and within original content. That also includes its screensaver — dubbed Roku City — which McDonald’s is taking over for a summer promo. Roku also said it will be using contextual AI to automatically insert ads at appropriate moments in Roku Channel programming. In a twist on programmatic, Roku will train artificial intelligence on its advertisers’ marketing campaigns and messaging goals then have it scour the library for “iconic plot moments” that offer a good fit, inserting ads in real time. Continue reading Roku Rolls Out New Ad Products and Contextual AI Insertions

On February 10, YouTube will release a slate of original content, including three movies and an adventure series, to convince viewers to sign up for its new $9.99/month subscription service, YouTube Red, currently only available in the U.S. The content features personalities with major YouTube followings, such as PewDiePie (Swedish gamer Felix Kjellberg), whose channel has nearly 42 million fans. YouTube global head of original content Susanne Daniels also sees the possibility for more standard premium content in the future. Continue reading YouTube Debuts Original Content on Red Subscription Channel

On February 25, ABC will air an episode of “Modern Family” called “Connection Lost” that addresses how parents attempt to communicate with their disinterested children via technology. The production marks a first in that it was shot almost exclusively on mobile devices, including Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2. During the episode, the TV screen will often resemble character Claire Dunphy’s MacBook screen featuring a mock-up of Apple’s OS X Yosemite (the show was produced in October when Yosemite was still in beta). Continue reading ABC to Broadcast Sitcom Episode Shot on iPhones and iPads