Cheap TVs’ incessant advertising reaches troubling new lows

TVs offer us an escape from the real world. After a long day, sometimes there’s nothing more relaxing than turning on your TV, tuning into your favorite program, and unplugging from the realities around you.

But what happens when divisive, potentially offensive messaging infiltrates that escape? Even with streaming services making it easy to watch TV commercial-free, it can still be difficult for TV viewers to avoid ads with these sorts of messages.

That’s especially the case with budget brands, which may even force controversial ads onto TVs when they’re idle, making users pay for low-priced TVs in unexpected, and sometimes troubling, ways.

Vizio TVs reportedly show Trump immigration messaging when in standby

An experience recently shared by an apparent Vizio TV owner illustrates how ads delivered via TV operating systems (OSes) can take ads from annoying to intrusive and offensive.

Reddit user DoubleJumps claimed last week that when their Vizio TV is idle, “it plays calming nature video, calming music, and then loops a message from the [T]rump admin[istration] telling illegal immigrants to gtfo over and over and over again.” They explained:

I left the [TV] idle while I went to the other room to play with my dog. After about a half an hour, I started hearing [US Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem praising Trump and telling immigrants to get out of America, over and over. I went in to check, and caught this video looping 3 more times before it went back to the nature clips.

The user added that when trying to replicate this, the TV “played the video again after about 20 minutes,” but only once.

As Distractify detailed, the video in question includes Noem telling people who live outside of the US that the US government will “hunt you down” if they enter the country illegally. Noem also claims in the video that “weak leadership has left our borders wide open, flooding our communities with drugs, human trafficking, and violent criminals.”

“This TV will be out of my house by the end of the week. Fucking dystopian bullshit company," DoubleJumps said.

Ars Technica hasn’t been able to replicate this internally. We also haven’t seen other reports of Vizio TV owners seeing this ad. Vizio and parent company Walmart didn’t respond to requests for comment.

However, what DoubleJumps detailed is completely within the scope of Vizio’s advertising efforts. Vizio TVs have something called Scenic Mode, which has the sets show, per Vizio, “relaxing, ambient content when your TV is idle for a period of time," along with ads. Scenic Mode can be disabled, but if it's enabled, the ads cannot be turned off. Vizio says the ads help it pay for things like the TVs’ free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels and help keep Vizio TV prices low.

Vizio also has ties to political ads. It has previously boasted about its work with "a political candidate on an ad campaign that combined CTV ads with our Household Connect omnichannel feature to reach potential voters both on their TV sets and on other opted in devices." The company says it can play a "powerful role... in helping political campaigns reach their intended audiences." 

The possibility that the ad placement was a mistake doesn't bring that much comfort either. If TV OS operators want to be so dependent on the advertising business, they owe it to customers to at least make sure errors like this (assuming this was an error) don't happen.

Idle TVs are advertisers’ playthings

Even though Vizio TV owners can turn off Scenic Mode, a company marketing screensaver ads as “an experience that adds to the environment of your home or office” shows how far some TV brands are willing to go to make advertising dollars. Selling screensaver ad space to politicians delivering threats and associating immigration with “drugs, human trafficking,” and violence suggests a lack of discernment over what sort of ads are shown where. A political ad shown during a TV commercial break is reasonable. However, seeing one when using a TV functionality that's supposed to offer “relaxing, ambient content” seems wholly misguided.

But TV brands, especially more budget ones like Vizio, are increasingly looking for new places to show ads. And one of the biggest opportunities for more ad space is idle TVs.

TV OS operators besides Vizio are trying to seize that opportunity. For example, in 2022, Roku launched Roku City, a screensaver for devices using Roku OS that shows an animated city with advertisements in the form of logos splattered across the city. Roku claims that Roku City reaches 38.5 million streaming households a week on average.

A shot of a Roku City screensaver.

Credit: Roku

Smart TVs and streaming devices running Amazon’s Fire OS have screensaver ads, too. Even LG, which is considered a more premium brand, launched screensaver ads in September, but users can disable them.

Startup Telly is a standout example of a company trying to monetize idle TV time. Announced in 2023, Telly TVs have a secondary screen that can show ads when the TV is not in use. Telly TVs are free to purchase in exchange for providing the company with user data, including disclosing your favorite news outlets, film and TV genres, foods, and services, your gender and race, and other information before you’re able to order the TV.

The free Telly 4K TV has a second screen for showing ads.

Credit: Telly

After they’re set up, Telly TVs track user behavior, including what they watch and for how long, what they search for, and where they put their Telly. If users opt out of tracking, Telly charges them for the TV.

Glance is another company demonstrating the strong interest advertisers have in TV screensavers. Glance is known for custom lock screens for phones that show things like news and weather. In December, it announced Glance TV, which essentially brings the same capability to TVs with Glance TV embedded into their OS. In addition to offering a different idle screen, Glance TV delivers targeted advertising and shoppable content to TVs when they go idle. Glance TV only delivers content from Glance's partners and doesn’t gather information from the web, Digital Trends previously reported.