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Interview with TiVo CEO Tom Rogers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the advertising-in-the-drivers-seat dept.

Thomas Hawk writes "Bloomberg did an exclusive interview with TiVo's Tom Rogers this week where among other things he discussed the possibility of TiVo offering a subscription only pricing model (i.e. no upfront cost to buy a TiVo box), the increasingly important role that advertising, ironically, is playing in their current business model, and details on the upcoming Series 3 standalone HDTV unit due out later this year."

11 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Tivo.. cable programming over IP? by otis+wildflower · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ideally, a company like Tivo or Google (or whoever, Apple?) would offer ala carte cable programming over IP. This would be a huge win for telco broadband, since it would weaken the symbiotic relationship between cable TV and cable broadband.

    If I could get DSL speeds equivalent to what I get from Time Warner, and be able to buy only the channels I want, I'd drop them in a heartbeat, assuming it costs less than $80/mo in total..

  2. Only a matter of time... by jmcmunn · · Score: 4, Insightful


    It's only a matter of time now until Tivo will go away. I don't think they will be able to compete once the cable companies have good PVR's. (and I mean good ones, not the crappy Comcast ones)

    Look at the current state of things...you have Tivo struggling to get their HDTV version to market and Comcast has one already in use in households around the country. The Comcast box is fine, it's the software interface that currently sucks. Once they get that nailed (and I believe they will) they are going to be the powerhouse in PVR's. Them and every other cable company out there. Drives are getting cheap, and as Comcast gets more units out there, they will improve their interface. And you have ReplayTV (who in my opinion has a superior product to Tivo). They just dropped out of the hardware business (like Tivo innevitably will) to go into software only. Their software equals Tivo's, and now we will have that available on the PC (or perhaps sold to Comcast for a new interface?)

    Tivo is fine and dandy...they road ReplayTV's coat tails in the beginning and then took the forefront, and eventually became "the PVR" that everyone knows. But honestly, their business model is going to have to change very significantly soon...there's no reason at all to buy a Tivo anymore when I can get a free box from Comcast (which is why they are going to go to the service only option) and once Comcast has a decent software interface, that's just one less box I need in my entertainment center if I have one built into my cable box!

    1. Re:Only a matter of time... by diamondsw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is such an OSS view of things:

      The Comcast box is fine, it's the software interface that currently sucks. Once they get that nailed (and I believe they will) they are going to be the powerhouse in PVR's.

      The interface is the hard part, not the hardware. Any schmoe can slap together the hardware; it's making it work and work well that is the lion's share of the effort.

      --
      I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
    2. Re:Only a matter of time... by whoop · · Score: 2, Informative

      Tivo works quite simply over a broadband connection as well. Even my antique first-generation Tivo allows it with a minor code in the telephone number and a linux box to accept the ppp connection. I haven't had a land phone line in about 2.5 years and this 1998 Tivo1 still works as flawlessly as the day I bought it ($400 back then, yikes!).

  3. Re:Why I am Red Hot Mad at DirecTV by mustafap · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >In my opinion their parent company Murdoch's News Corp. is a bunch rich bastards who couldn't care less about their customers.

    This comes up time & time again. You have to remember, you are *not* the customer. You are the product. The customer is the companies buying advertising space.

    I hate it, but it's true.

    --
    Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
  4. Always somebody's pariah by Sloppy · · Score: 2, Informative
    "About a year or so ago TiVo was a real pariah in the view of the advertising industry," said Rogers. "Today we find that has totally changed. Yes, TiVo does allow people to fast forward through ads and yes that's an important feature of TiVo, but the advertising industry has come to understand that that's going to happen no matter what. And the issue now is how do you create a new relationship with the viewer so that advertising messages get there and they are looking at TiVo as that platform increasingly as potentially the way to do that."

    "Now we find ourselves embraced rather than a pariah and consequently my old friends in the advertising industry are still my friends."

    For advertisers, switch from pariah to embraced. For customers, switch from embraced to pariah. Advertisers and (most) customers are ultimately in a zero-sum conflict, and you can't please them both.
    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  5. Re:Tivo.. cable programming over IP? by RomulusNR · · Score: 3, Interesting

    a company like Tivo or Google

    I wish Google would buy Tivo. It would seem to be symbotic for both companies -- since Tivo is trying to get into broadband video delivery, and Google is trying to collect a corpus of video for Google Video. Plus, Tivo would elevate above PVR and into (i know, I know, but it's different this time) set-top box, going beyond the TV recording focus. Plus, the companies would then fare better against MS's assaults on both fronts.

    --
    Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
  6. Re:Why I am Red Hot Mad at DirecTV by Matt+Perry · · Score: 2, Informative
    All that griping because of the lack of the home media option? You can get another DirecTivo for about $15 with no more commitment from DTV. I paid $100 for the home media option when it came out on the stand alone Tivos and wasn't really impressed with it. Plus you can easily install 4.x or 7.x software onto the DirecTivos (hey, you are posting to slashdot, so hacking shouldn't be an issue). Check Dealdatabase for the info on that.
    In order to make it "seem" like they are making things better for us they have stopped all software updates for the DirecTV versions of the TiVo that add new features.
    Except for the 6.2 upgrade about six months ago. What do you want, 7.2 like on the stand alones? You know, the version with more ads everywhere and slower than the DirecTivos? No thanks.

    I have two DirecTivos and couldn't be happier.

    --
    Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
  7. Yes, but when is TiVo UK coming out of the coma! by the+Haldanian · · Score: 2, Interesting

    TiVo UK still exists, operates, services, updates, rocks... but for some inexplicable reason one piece of the puzzle is now missing...

    The Hardware...

    What on *earth* is going on at TiVo UK?

    Which deal with which devil leaves the UK market uncontested like this?!

  8. Parent Post is Uninformed by jherber · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It's only a matter of time now until Tivo will go away


    FUD!!!!!!!!!!!!

    1. Tivo showed their HDTV box at CES 2005, and again at 2006. It isn't a technology issue, it is a wait for the Cable Card standards and certifcation (2.0 which allows up and down stream still isn't finished!)

    2. Comcast and Tivo are working together. Comcast is paying Tivo to port their software to the Comcast Motorola box. The status as of CES 2006 was that key functionality was working. Tivo will get recurring revenue for every subscriber that chooses Tivo interface and Tivo and Comcast will split advertising revenue generated through Tivo's advertising services.

    http://news.com.com/TiVo,+Comcast+reach+DVR+deal/2 100-1041_3-5616961.html

    3. Business is fine. Rogers (CEO) said during last Growth Conference in December that the company could ad 500k subscribers on break even cash flow. There are plenty of other networks besides Comcast/Dish/DirecTV that cannot afford to build and design their own DVR.

    DVR is evolving. Tivo SA2's all have broadband through USB. Series 3 (shown at CES 2006 and rumored to be in beta) will have built in broadband. Generic DVRs do not talk to your network. Play your MP3s, show your picture collections, let you view RSS feeds, etc...

    Tivo defends their "Time Warp" patent in Texas this March against Dish. That is one of the patents in the Patent Office's Museum.

    Tivo has a 1% churn rate, a rare feat in cable and television services.

    Tivo is going worldwide (TGC).

  9. TiVo + Galleon + BitTorrent = IPTV today!!! by MS_leases_my_soul · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have a Series 2 TiVo and have installed Galleon on my PC. I am able to download public domain videos (like the original DOA and the old Superman cartoons) from the Internet Archive to my PC, and pull them to my TiVo from the PC. If the video is not in the MPEG2 format TiVo needs, that's okay because Galleon can transcode it by calling external programs.

    My point is -- all the technology is here today. Hak.5 and DiggNation show up using BitTorrent (which I leave seeding for 2 weeks to show my support). Galleon transcodes to MPEG2 and serves to TiVo. I go to TiVo, pull down from PC and enjoy. Heck, I bet there are even people out there using some of the BT clients that read RSS feeds to automatically download regular TV shows. I guess I am a big chicken since do IT inside the financial community and would lose my career if the studios sent their lawyers to my door. But if SciFi sold a subscription to buy a season of BSG for $25, I would be all over it even if I had to seed torrents to make it happen. If I could get old episodes of Deep Space 9 or Babylon 5 -- sold. If I could get more Firefly episodes right from Mutant Enemy without going through a studio -- I would PRE-PAY (Hear that Joss?).

    Now, here is the problem I see. The TiVo 3 will support more codecs, support HDTV, and have more power. All of this becomes a lot more feasible with a TiVo 3, but TiVo now has a deal with Comcast. Comcast would probably not be happy if TiVo suddenly turned their PVR into the new cablebox of the IPTV revolution. Can anyone say lawsuit?

    So, as much as I love my TiVo and the company, if they are stuck in bed with the devil, maybe Google needs to take the cash and go create their own IPTV PVR. Heck, Microsoft could even do it today using MCE and/or xBox 360 if they just .... ummm ... nevermind, nothing to see here, move along.