Does TiVo Have A Chance?

In the world of DVRs, the TiVo is easily the most important and capable device around. With a slew of options that allow you to find shows with ease and a user interface that is second to none, the product is a world-class entrant into the market. Yet while most people enjoy the TiVo — it has had a steady 70-plus satisfaction rate for years — it’s still a fringe device that has little chance of survival unless the company does something to combat cable companies and increase subscriber count. Unfortunately, that “something” may be a dramatically different price point — free.

According to James McQuivey of Forrester Research, who joined me on my CNET Digital Home podcast last week, “TiVo has been fighting for years and has only sold about 1.7 million units of its boxes compared to your cable and satellite companies, who looked at TiVo and said, ‘1.7 million units? We can do that.’”

And it’s that issue: The cable companies can (and have) capitalized on TiVo’s business model by creating sub-par DVRs that mimic the device’s functionality at no additional charge, effectively ensuring that TiVo still incurs millions of dollars worth of losses each year. This despite the fact that the cable company DVRs simply don’t hold a candle to the TiVo; they are incapable of offering the kind of solutions we have come to expect from more advanced devices.

newteevee.com

VOD Rising: Preferred By Some Lazy TV Viewers Over DVR

Talk about your lethargic TV viewers!

Yesterday, Disney-ABC Television chief Anne Sweeney said 20% of DVR owners said they prefer to watch video-on-demand rather than use their DVRs.

How much easier can DVRs be? At best, viewers only need to hit the same button twice on DVR. Once to say, “Yes, record.” And then again when prompted: “Are you sure you want to record this?”

Marketers really need to concentrate on these lame TV viewers — perhaps find other messaging. If they are too lazy to deal with DVRs, they are probably too lazy to respond to other media — as well as schlep into their cars to go out and buy products from Target, Best Buy, Kmart, or Whole Foods.

Separately, Sweeney also says viewers of ABC TV shows online are phenomenally happy to grab free viewing in exchange for sitting through four commercials. No word on whether they are happier to do this than watching via DVRs and zapping through commercials.

The only tedious part of the DVR experience, is in fact, fast-forwarding through commercials. Now ABC, with its new VOD initiative, has taken out the guesswork.

You don’t have to zap through commercials –because you can’t. ABC will only give cable operators a VOD program deal if they disengage the fast-forwarding function.

Weirdly, this seems okay for most viewers. Ninety-three percent of viewers say watching VOD with commercials is fine because they can start a program when they like.

No doubt ABC will make it a bit easier for viewers with VOD, trimming back the number of commercials to be seen on a typical VOD airing to perhaps ten 30-second messages.

That would amount to five minutes of non-program interruptions, rather than the 15 minutes or so viewers get via traditional TV airings.

No wonder marketers seemingly are ga-ga over VOD. In particular, ABC gives them what they always wanted — less clutter, which is, not surprisingly, what TV viewers always wanted as well.

It may even lull them into more laziness, making them forget about fast-forwarding — for the moment.

mediapost.com

Comcast rollout of TiVo box begins

SAN JOSE, Calif. - After more than two years of promises and delays, Comcast Corp. has finally begun the commercial rollout of its first cable set-top boxes that run TiVo's digital video recording technology.
As expected, New England is the first market to get the long-awaited Comcast-TiVo offering. The rollout started in the last few days, TiVo spokesman Whit Clay said in a statement Thursday.

He declined further comment.

The Comcast-TiVo deal was first announced in 2005 and is considered a key part of TiVo's future as it works to attract more customers and become profitable. TiVo pioneered the DVR and is the best known brand name but has struggled amid cheaper offerings by rivals, including Comcast.

Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV provider, has said it will continue to offer its basic DVR service; the TiVo-based offering will be a premium service. Pricing details were not immediately available.

yahoo news



Hands-on With Comcast's TiVo-Enabled DVR video