Fresh from getting the nod for their TiVoToGo content sharing service, PVR manufacturer TiVo have cut the price of their digital recorder. With competition from cable companies looming, this could be TiVo’s last chance to grow, or even hang on to, their market share.
A TiVo PVR is now only US$100 (€82) for the 40 hour model, with the subscription costing US$13 (€11) a month.
The company has launched a US$50 million (€41 million) ad campaign in the hope of growing sales from US$141 million (€115 million) last year to US$1 billion (€820 million) by 2008.
“This will set the stage and give us a chance at profitability by the end of our next fiscal year,” said Brodie Keast, TiVo’s executive vice president and general manager.
Rival cable firms are threatening TiVo’s market share by launching services with cheaper monthly charges. Although TiVo hope to grow their installed user base form 1.6 million subscribers to 10 million in four years, the outlook does not appear good: the company’s share price has recently fallen by 10% to a 16 month low.
As Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff has said.”This is it. This is their shot to get a whole lot of new subscribers before cable DVR subscribers really take off.”
TiVo
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Fraser Lovatt
Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.
Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.
At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.
After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.
These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?
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