Roku
has
a
plan
to
boost
ad
revenue.
The
company
will
start
showing
video
ads
on
your
homescreen
at
some
point.
Roku
CEO
Anthony
Wood
told
investors
during
the
company’s
earnings
call
last
week
that
the
company
will
put
the
video
ads
in
the
“premier
video
app
we
called
the
Marquee”
where
static
image
ads
live
now.
It
sounds
like
Wood
is
referring
to
the
box
on
the
homescreen
that
sits
to
the
right
of
your
Roku
apps,
which
hopefully
means
the
video
ads
won’t
be
full-screened.
He
said
the
company
is
also
testing
out
“other
types
of
video
ad
units”
and
looking
into
other
ways
to
“innovate
more
video
advertising”
on
the
homescreen.
The
company’s
push
comes
after
it
performed
its
third
layoff
in
less
than
a
year
last
September
amid
a
slower
ads
business,
which
is
its
main
source
of
revenue.
During
the
call,
Wood
also
mentioned
the
new
“AI-driven”
personalized
content
row
that
Roku
recently
added
to
the
homescreen.
Whatever
Roku
has
planned,
the
video
ads
living
in
a
box
isn’t
quite
as
irritating
as
the
full-screen
video
ads
Amazon
started
showing
on
Fire
TV
devices
last
year
or
the
YouTube
pause
ads
that
are
rumored
to
be
on
their
way.
That’s
in
addition
to
a
growing
streaming
industry
emphasis
on
ad-supported
tiers
and
higher
prices
on
ad-free
subscriptions.
Still,
Roku
did
file
the
patent
equivalent
of
telling
other
streaming
hardware
makers
to
hold
its
beer
—
a
plan
to
use
automatic
content
recognition
to
tell
when
you’ve
paused
the
screen
on,
say,
your
Apple
TV
or
PS5
and
take
that
opportunity
to
foist
ads
on
you
through
HDMI.
That’s
just
a
patent
filing,
of
course,
and
doesn’t
mean
it’s
actually
happening.
But
if
it
ever
does,
just
remember:
anything,
even
a
Roku
TV
device,
can
be
a
Frisbee
if
you
try
hard
enough.
Original author: Wes Davis
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