backtop

Internet TiVo CEO May Aim To Make Hardware Free
Brandon Hill (Blog) - February 28, 2006 12:31 PM
Print 14 comment(s) - last by greenmrt.. on Mar 1 at 8:18 AM
TiVo may give away set-top boxes for free to draw in more customers

In an effort to gain more marketshare, analysts are claiming that TiVo could possibly make its set-top boxes free on certain plans. The free boxes would be attached to higher priced plans or plans that hold customers to a longer contract. I'm sure that many customers would go for the slightly higher priced plans if they could avoid the steep cost of entry assocated with the set-top boxes. Even so, TiVo still faces some stiff competition:

TiVo also faces competition from far bigger cable and satellite TV providers and consumer electronics makers, all of whom are offering rival digital video recorders to consumers. Many of the devices are more powerful than TiVo's and are offered at lower prices -- sometimes for free.

In an interview earlier this month, TiVo's CEO, Tom Rogers, explained his vision for the future of digital recording: "The estimates are today that roughly about 8 to 9 million homes have TiVo or other forms of DVR in them today. My view is that is going to grow to be a much, much, larger number. The estimates range anywhere from 40 to 70 percent of households in the next five or six years will have TiVo and other forms of DVR."

Whether this new "free" offer that company plans to offer helps them achieve record growth remains to be seen, but it is at least a step in the right direction.  The CEO also stressed in the interview that existing Comcast hardware might be upgradeable to TiVo capabilities via software updates. 

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
RE: They are so backwards on this
By abhaxus on 2/28/2006 1:51:07 PM , Rating: 2
I agree completely. the reason many people balk at buying a TV is because first they have to pay for the DVR, THEN pay for the monthly fee.

If I'm going to pay a monthly fee I might as well keep my comcast DVR which records in HD and has a simple GUI which doesn't spoon feed me like the Tivo does.

That said, if they offered a lifetime programming package for $499 with a free Tivo along with it, I would probably buy it.


"Vista runs on Atom ... It's just no one uses it". -- Intel CEO Paul Otellini









botimage
Copyright 2013 DailyTech LLC. - RSS Feed | Advertise | About Us | Ethics | FAQ | Terms, Conditions & Privacy Information | Kristopher Kubicki