Too Much TV: How Much Does Your TV Know About You?

Here’s everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, March 25th, 2026:

IS THIS A CASE OF YOUR SMART TV BEING A LITTLE TOO SMART?
Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Yakov Smirnoff built a decent career as a stand-up comedian from Russia who spent a lot of time comparing that country with what he found here in America. Aside from his catchphrase "What A Country!," I mostly remember his joke about television: "In America, you watch television. In the Soviet Union, the television watches you."

I don't think he was predicting the era of smart TV's, but it is true that your television pays a lot more attention to what you're watching than you realize.

I was reminded of that during Monday's IAB NewFronts presentation by Walmart and its smart television company Vizio, who rolled out a new initiative to create what they describe as a "connected content-to-commerce ecosystem."

That includes a unified account login for Vizio OS TVs and onn devices powered by Vizio, which would allow users to access smart TV features using Walmart credentials. The integration is designed to connect viewing behavior with commerce activity while "maintaining privacy through aggregated and permissioned data use."

“By unifying account access, we’re creating a seamless experience across screens while laying the groundwork for deeper integration between retail and entertainment,” said Courtney Naudo, SVP of business integration and planning at Walmart Inc., in a statement announcing the initiative.

The companies didn't release a lot of details, but by using your Walmart account to log into your television, the company could better track how effective ads are and whether the user makes a purchase from Walmart after seeing a specific set of ads. It could also sell branded advertising across the platforms. For instance, selling an integrated advertising campaign across the smart television platforms, which ties into special offers available through Walmart.

While Walmart's log-in idea is the most aggressive attempt to track and monetize the smart television audience, many of the companies presenting at this years IAB NewFronts were making moves they  hoped would make it easier to convince advertising buyers that connected television advertising was more targetable and a better value than advertising on traditional linear television.

For instance, earlier today, Comcast introduced Outcomes+, a new offering for advertisers "that aims to improve targeting and attribution, bridging the gap between linear TV and streaming."

During a presentation that included Seth Meyers, Mikey Day and Cal Ripken Jr., the company touted its ability to provide more data to advertisers as well as deliver advertising to the viewers who were most likely to be engaged and hopefully respond to the pitches.

A number of companies also rolled out new initiatives with Amazon Demand Side Platform (DSP), which uses a user's previous viewing and purchasing behavior to display real-time text ads, video advertising and audio ads - both on and off of Amazon. 

This is a very simplified explanation, but brands using Amazon DSP can target certain subsets of specific viewers for relevant advertising. As a broad example, instead of delivering ads to women 25-45, it could target viewers in a subset of women most open to purchasing beauty products who have purchased a product from a rival company in the past six months. In other words, brands can make targeting decisions based on purchases made on Amazon or through a variety of Amazon partner markets.

Amazon DSP has ad inventory currently available via deals with Netflix, Roku, Spotify and others. 

Tubi announced during its NewFronts presentation that advertisers will now have first-look access of Tubi’s audience, 85% of which can be matched via Amazon Ads and its authenticated graph.

"We’re continuing to deliver the same seamless buying experience that advertisers are used to and accustomed to, powered by Amazon’s authenticated graph, which provides true deterministic reach to over 90% of U.S. households," said Kelly MacLean, vice president of engineering, science and product for Amazon DSP, during Samsung’s presentation. "So brands can also tap into Amazon’s trillions of browsing, streaming and shopping signals to gain robust measurement and insights all the way across the funnel."

In another example, on Tuesday, Samsung announced it will bring Amazon’s Interactive Video Ad technology to Samsung TV Plus. The integration will launch in July and allows viewers to take action with their remotes, either via “Add to Cart” functionality for brands that sell via Amazon or actions like “Send to Phone” and “Sign Up Today” for other brands.

“Shoppable innovation is no longer a future concept, it’s the standard,” said Courtney Howell, Head of Agency Development, Samsung Ads. “With our new Amazon integration and the expansion of Samsung Ads interactive ad capabilities, we’re transforming the biggest screen in the home into a fully shoppable, performance-driven platform where inspiration, engagement, and purchase happen in the same moment.” 

I am really fascinated by the growth in the digital ad business and it is increasingly having an impact on everything from the commercials you see to the deals you'll be offered in an effort to encourage you to buy.

And if you would like a bit more detail on how some of this tracking works, check out my interview from last year with Ron Cohen, SVP At Claritas And Mike Bloxham, EVP At Magid.

I am going to be at a couple of other industry events this year, including StreamTV in Denver this June. So if you work for one of the companies in this space, I'd love to connect with you.



SOME NEW PROGRAMMING WAS ALSO ANNOUNCED AT THE NEWFRONTS
This week's IAB NewFronts haven't been only about new ad targeting partnerships. Several of the companies also announced new programming that they'll be rolling out in the future.

Samsung announced three new live experiences and exclusives arriving on Samsung TV Plus in 2026:

• HOOLIGANS: The ARCH Racing Project with Keanu Reeves & Gard Hollinger:  Executive produced by and starring Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger, the six-part docuseries follows the founders of ARCH Motorcycle as they enter the world of professional racing with the same precision and innovation that defines their brand. Produced by V10 Entertainment, this underdog story offers an inside look at how the lean, scrappy, and dynamic team at ARCH punches above their weight as they go up against the giants of motorsports. Premiering this summer only on Samsung TV Plus, Hooligans: The ARCH Racing Project marks the service’s expansion into original content with its first-ever exclusive docuseries. 

• Mark Rober Live Global Event (wt):In a top secret, two-hour global live event on Samsung TV Plus, viral inventor and former NASA engineer Mark Rober invites audiences into a real-time, high stakes scientific mission where discoveries unfold live. Blending cutting edge technology with unprecedented access, this is a rare moment where viewers won’t just watch history, they’ll experience it as it happens. Location and premiere date to be announced at a later date.

• MotoAmerica: Samsung TV Plus is revving up its live sports portfolio as the exclusive FAST home of MotoAmerica, the premier motorcycle road racing series in North America, streaming every live race for fans and delivering wall-to-wall coverage throughout the 2026-27 seasons. 

The AVOD platform Fawesome has inked a deal with basketball creator Jesser, who has more than 40 million followers. Fawesome currently has partnership deals with around 50 creators. The service is also adding some live sports, including live partnerships with the A7FL (American 7s Football League), the Professional Grappling Federation and wrestling properties.

Tubi also announced some new programming initiatives, including some sports culture programming and a couple of new Tubi Originals:

• Altcast with Apple TV × Formula 1: For the first time ever, Tubi is working with Apple TV to offer exclusive live F1 altcasts for multiple races during the 2026 Formula 1 season — available for free and across every device in the U.S. The altcasts will feature top creators who are experts on the sport to provide sharp race insight paired with entertaining commentary. This programming is designed to expand F1’s appeal and broaden access for new, younger, and more digitally native audiences. The supported races with live F1 altcasts will be announced at a later date.

• Deestroying: Original content from popular creator Deestroying that blends sports, competition, and creator-driven storytelling, capturing the energy of digital-first fandom and the crossover between athletes, creators, and culture.

• JESSER’S ULTIMATE KICKOFF: Original programming from top creator Jesser and friends as they take on fun and crazy soccer challenges ranging from scoring goals, jumping in mystery pools, winning prizes, and competing against increasingly more difficult defenders!

• GAME ON: Talented gamer, Casey, is ready to win her high school’s first esports tournament. But when she discovers her online arch-nemesis is Theo, the charming new kid she’s starting to crush on, Casey decides to stay undercover and use their budding romance to study his moves in video game Eon Rush and take him down from the inside. With her supportive dad reminding her who she is beyond the headset, Casey’s carefully calculated plan begins to unravel as fake feelings turn real. GAME ON begins production this month with Sky Katz (Surviving Summer) and Case Walker (The Other Two) in the leading roles alongside renowned voice actor Nolan North (Uncharted, Assassin’s Creed series).

• REMEMBER ME: In this YA supernatural murder-mystery, Shari Cooper is dead. Like, fell from the top of a high-rise to the street below, dead. And one of her friends — is her killer. Now she has to solve her own murder from beyond the grave, before the relentless, soul-sucking Shadow that’s stalking her gets to her first. REMEMBER ME recently wrapped production and stars Brec Bassinger (Final Destination Bloodlines) and Charlie Gillespie (Sidelined 2: Intercepted) in the leading roles.

ODDS AND SODS
* Series 21 of Taskmaster will premiere Thursday, April 9th on the Taskmaster YouTube Channel.

* Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have "re-signed their Morning Joe contracts with MS NOW through the end of 2029.

* Netflix has struck a “first-ever" partnership with Sky Business, the commercial venue media arm of the UK Pay-TV heavyweight, to help distribute its coverage of the upcoming bout between Tyson Fury and Arslanbek Makhmudov. This marks the first time that Sky Business will disseminate coverage of a Netflix broadcast to its commercial customers, which include bars, pubs, and other ‘hospitality venues’ across the UK and Ireland.

* Athens: Birth Of Democracy premieres Wednesday, April 15th on PBS. Here is the official logline: "The documentary pulls viewers into the artifacts and hidden corners of ancient Greece, tracing how a world of unchecked power gave way to something new and radical: power for the people. With sweeping aerials of modern Athens and its ancient landscape and ruins, the film draws on the latest discoveries with commentary from leading historians and archaeologists to examine not just how democracy was born — but the lessons we can learn from its origin story, as America marks 250 years of its own democratic experiment."

* The streaming original film Apex premieres Friday, April 24th on Netflix. Here is the brief official logline: "A grieving woman testing her limits in the Australian wilderness is suddenly ensnared in a deadly game with a ruthless predator."

IS YOUR INTERNET ROUTER SPYING ON YOU?
Yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission announced an import ban on new consumer routers, saying that the current home-internet status quo—under which pretty much all routers are manufactured overseas—represented “an unacceptable risk to the national security of the U.S. or the safety and security of Americans.

The FCC may or may not have a point, although a couple of tech reporters I spoke to told me the risks weren't any higher than you'd see on domestic-produced routers. The problem is that there aren't many consumer routers produced in the United States. So once current inventories are exhausted in stores, you're likely to see shortages and higher prices. 

I'm curious how this will affect American internet providers, who rely heavily on imported routers. I've reached out to several companies looking for a comment, but so far haven't received any responses.

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