Roku Plans To Play Ads Through HDMI-Connected Device

(RTTNews) - Roku (ROKU) is exploring the idea of showing advertisements to users when the television is connected to a media device via an HDMI connection, according to a recent patent filing uncovered by Lowpass.

Meaning, if Roku TV is connected to another streaming device or console such as Apple TV or PlayStation via HDMI, then the company would be able to show commercials when the video or game is on pause.

The filing noted that Roku would learn whether the show or game is paused or not by adopting several methods such as receiving a pause signal from the remote control, detecting a pause icon, observing the video frames to determine the motion on the screen, and receiving a signal from HDMI connection.

Meanwhile, Roku stressed that it would only show commercials relevant to the users by using automatic content recognition technology to analyze frozen images or audio frames, or by analyzing metadata.

According to Lowpass, the decision comes as Roku lost $44 million on smart TVs in the fiscal year 2023, whereas it earned $1.6 billion through ads and services, prompting the smart TV manufacturer to toy with the prospect of earning more through this latest idea.

However, the idea is just a patent for the time being as there is no evidence that Roku has actually built such system.