TiVo Gaining ‘Most Traction’ With Smaller Cable Operators
TiVo’s isn’t spending a “ton of time” chasing Comcast-like deals, having gained its “most significant traction” with small- and medium-size U.S. cable operators, Naveen Chopra, TiVo senior vice president of corporate development and strategy, said on an earnings call. While Comcast launched TiVo Premiere DVRs last year at retail in San Francisco loaded with its Xfinity on Demand, the service has been slow to expand. The Comcast-related Premiere is due in additional markets this year, but it also was supposed to expand distribution last fall.
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"We are not spending a ton on chasing the Comcast-type deals in the way that we had in the past,” Chopra said. “We have unique relationships with them for combined retail product that offers all the over-the-top, as well as VOD-type content. But our business in the United States does not depend on getting Comcast into the type of deal that we have with Virgin, for instance.” Virgin Media has been selling TiVo’s 1 terabyte product in the U.K., adding 242,000 subscribers to end Q1 with 677,000 since launching last year.
Five satellite and cable operators -- Comcast, British Sky Broadcasting, DirecTV, Dish Network and Time Warner Cable -- are focusing on developing DVR strategies internally. “Everyone else is “looking toward a third party to implement their advanced television,” TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said. “So the opportunity is huge."
TiVo is “working closely” with Charter Communications to broaden distribution of its DVRs beyond the initial Dallas and Forth Worth markets, Rogers said. Charter has been expected to move TiVo DVRs into five more markets. TiVo’s ties with Charter “can evolve through time,” new Charter CEO Tom Rutledge has said. TiVo’s DVRs also are distributed through Grande Communications, RCN, Suddenlink and DirecTV, which recently took the service national, TiVo officials said. Even with its relaunch, TiVo subscriber losses from DirecTV’s SD service, outpaced those added to the new HD model, Rogers said. DirecTV was an early TiVo supporter, but parted with the company in 2005 as it shifted business to former affiliate NDS and started internal development. It signed a new agreement with TiVo in 2008, but has continued to maintain SD subscribers to the service.
"We're gaining subs” with DirecTV, but the problem is they don’t have broadband and that’s everything we talk about,” Rogers told us Thursday at the Sanford Bernstein investor conference in New York. It’s not something we make a big deal of because its limited compared to where we are today.” To further build its cable business, TiVo is launching a TV Everywhere Web portal for operators “in the near future,” allowing them to supply content for the iPad, notebook PC or other connected device, Rogers said. TiVo also released TiVo Stream which allows content stored on a TiVo Premiere DVR to be delivered to iPads and iPhones, he said.