# Tivo lost 145,000 customers



## trex527 (Jul 16, 2007)

This is something I picked up from afterdawn.com
These are not easy days for TiVo Inc. The company is still struggling to add subscribers and has been hurt by miscalculations of its HDTV products' popularity in the quarter ending July 31st. It's cable partners are also still lacking in fulfilling their promises to the company. Comcast announced it would put TiVo on some of its set top boxes two years ago, but to this day there still has not been a single commercial rollout. 

In a conference call, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers tried to calm concerns about those delays, saying that Comcast was ready to rollout commercially in the next four weeks in portions of Massachusetts and New Hampshire including Boston. However, the worst news for the company has been the loss of 145,000 customers in the quarter. 

To make it worse, it is losing customers from those with the standalone box, its most profitable segment. It was the first decline the company suffered in its history. The company also underestimated the popularity of its new HDTV DVRs, causing it to take a $11.2 million writedown for leftover models of its standard DVR still in its inventories. 

Rogers said that the growth "progressed at a pace that surprised many in the industry, including us." All the problems rolled up a $17.7 million loss, much worse than both TiVo's and financial analyst's predictions. 

Source: 
Betanews
The point of me posting this here is the question of why can't D* work out something with tivo and give us what we are wanting and that's a new hd dirctivo?I know that I'm grasping at straws but I just thought that it's worth a read.I would hope that it gives tivo a reason to work with Dtv again.


----------



## milominderbinder (Dec 18, 2006)

If you want to see the official numbers from TiVo for yourself, they are here:

TiVo announced that they are now losing 42,000 DIRECTV customers a month (p. 7).

TiVo's report shows that the number of non-DIRECTV TiVo additions continues to fall since it peaked in July of 2006, the month before the HR20 shipped. TiVo is currently also reporting a net loss of non-DIRECTV subs as well.

I hope that TiVo boxes stay a viable competitor to DISH and DIRECTV.

- Craig


----------



## atlantadan (Aug 8, 2005)

Alot more losses are coming, as we all move to the HR20, to get the HD channels


----------



## garbec (May 14, 2004)

I see what is happening to Tivo, but I don't get it.

Didn't they win a huge lawsuit with DISH that essentially confirmed that all generic DVRS (DirecTV, DISH, Cable) violate patents held by TIVO? If so, they should be collecting royalties from DISH, and they should be filing similar suits against every Cable company that ships a DVR. Supposedly TIVO has agreed not to sue DirecTV as part of a extension to their licencing agreement.

Additionally, TIVO should be defining itself as a software/service company. They should be licensing their "BETTER UI & SUGGESTIONS" as upgrades to all generic DVRs. If all DVRs infringe, then TIVO is in a perfect position to trade business agreements for licensing fees.

They need to give up on competing with hardware, and instead focus on better firmware for every DVR on the market. If they keep trying to compete with the whole world with hardware, they will die.

From a customer perspective, I would like to see my DVR (HR20) have a $2-5 per month upgrade option to get TIVO functionality. I would pay.

Gary


----------



## milominderbinder (Dec 18, 2006)

garbec said:


> I see what is happening to TiVo, but I don't get it.
> 
> Didn't they win a huge lawsuit with DISH that essentially confirmed that all generic DVRS (DirecTV, DISH, Cable) violate patents held by TIVO?...


True, but winning the first round of a lawsuit and collecting are very different things.

It is a paper victory at least for now.

The bigger issue is that TiVo has fewer subscribers:


```
7/07	4/07	1/07	10/06	7/06	4/06
&#65279;TiVo - Owned subscriptions	1,708	1,727	1,726	1,625	1,572	1,542
&#65279;DIRECTV ave. subscriptions	2,489	2,615	2,718	2,809	2,846	2,875
DIRECTV Net adds (losses)	-126	-103	-91	-37	-29	2
&#65279;Total cumulative subscriptions	4,197	4,342	4,444	4,434	4,418	4,417
Total Net additions (losses)	-145	-102	10	16	1	53
```
Source:
http://investor.tivo.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-07-198285

All numbers are in thousands.

It is not just that they are losing subscribers. The speed of loss is accelerating. Remember that these numbers are all from months ago. The hysteresis is exaggerated by the fact that DIRECTV subscriptions collected this month will appear in TiVo's P/L 2 to 6 months from now.

Based upon what you are seeing in this forum, what will be the results next quarter?

I still hold on to an old TiVo. But for $19 and no added costs per month, I could replace it with another HR20 that can get the HD channels. I have not done it yet because I feel bad for the little TiVo guy. His antennas are all droopy and everything... 

- Craig


----------



## trex527 (Jul 16, 2007)

Maybe it's just me but I think they(tivo)should try and form a new contract with Direct and if nothing else make another directivo and get some of their customers back.I don't think having two seperate dvrs would hardly hurt either company(meaning the h20 and a new one from tivo).


----------



## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

Ummmm. Was reported here already.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=364510


----------



## milominderbinder (Dec 18, 2006)

Jim,

I can't speak for the OP but I don't go over to the general discussion much as most of it does not apply to me. This thread applies to my decision about whether or not to keep my DIRECTV TiVo.  

- Craig


----------



## kmill14 (Dec 11, 2006)

Tivo's all but said publicly that they are living and dying by the cable companies right now, hence the S3 and Tivo HD boxes strictly for cable and OTA.

DTV has closed off any new possibilities with Tivo (you can blame them) until recently with new management in place. 

There has been brisk sales of the new HD box, and number of buyers were old DTV Tivo users.


----------



## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

You really should look at the other forums. Why? Because many threads get posted incorrectly and you can find important info there. 

Also, this thread was mistitled IMO. It implied TiVo as a company, not the general loss of all subscribers.


----------



## BBURNES (Jun 23, 2004)

I have a number of responses to posts in this thread...

There are a number of reasons why TiVo has not been able to become truly a software/service company.

In the past, cable companies (and their DVR hardware/software suppliers) and Dish Network have not been willing to pay TiVo for their product.

In my opinion, to varying degrees, these companies have "borrowed" TiVo's intellectual property and have been able to sell DVR services to consumers without having to pay for it. Until recently, TiVo has not been actively enforcing its IP.

TiVo's first lawsuit -- against Dish -- will set precedent in this area once judges rule on Dish's appeals later this year. While I'm not a lawyer or software/hardware developer, if the appeals court finds in TiVo's favor, there is a reasonable possibility that more favorable judgements may follow if TiVo decides to file additional suits in the future. And reasonable possibility that more partnership deals will fall into place in lieu of lawsuits.

DirecTV, through its negotiation of an agreement with TiVo through 2010, cannot be sued for infringement. But after 2010, all bets off.

Comcast and Cox presumably cannot be sued as well since both are developing TiVo platforms. But other operators (and hardware manufacturers) could have exposure.

The current timing is unfortunate for TiVo. While they have been planning for decreasing subscribers on the DirecTV side of their business, the Comcast launch (and subscriber growth) has been delayed. The Dish lawsuit has been meandering through the system which further delays the revenue likely coming directly from it ... and other resulting software partnership deals/revenue.

Additionally, TiVo made a mistake in launching an $800 HD unit earlier this year. As their stand-alone customers began to make the move to HD (thus entering into the DVR market again,) they chose to buy their DVR service through their content provider. And it is no wonder. You REALLY have to be a TiVo fan to be willing to pay $800 for a box that is nearly FREE (on its face) from cable or satellite (though generic). Perhaps there was no cheaper way to do it. However, I find that hard to believe since just a few months later, a $299 price point was met.

So, a quadruple whammy is what I see: DirecTV's divorce, coinciding with Comcast and Cox delays, Dish lawsuit delay... and TiVo's underestimation of the HD market.

On the positive side:

- Comcast TiVo is almost here
- Dish lawsuit resolution almost here
- A more competitive SA HD product
- New ownership at DirecTV (Liberty)
- Increasing content and innovation at TiVo

It will be a most interesting next 6 months.


----------



## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

milominderbinder said:


> I hope that TiVo boxes stay a viable competitor to DISH and DIRECTV.
> 
> - Craig


Keep in mind the market Tivo is in is about to be flooded by well financed competitors. Both Sony and Phillips have recently annouced DVR functionality for cable. Others wil join them.

Tivo's mgmt has claimed that the entire problem was a lack of an affordable HD DVR. But Tivo still has to prove that was the problem by selling them in quantity. It may be people just don't have enough interest in third party dvr's that cost $300 upfront and have to be replaced when they break now that leased options are available.


----------



## milominderbinder (Dec 18, 2006)

JimSpence said:


> ...Also, this thread was mistitled IMO. It implied TiVo as a company, not the general loss of all subscribers.


Jim,

TiVo lost 126,000 DIRECTV subscribers and *another * 19,000 TiVo owned subscribers.

TiVo did suffer a general loss of all subscribers in the second quarter report.

The OP is correct.

- Craig


----------



## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

I stand corrected. 

Why did you post twice instead of editing it?


----------



## robbins (Aug 23, 2005)

Tivo committed two very bad errors:

1. Getting rid of lifetime subscripions
2. overpricing the S3

They *might* have time to save the Company if both issues are fixed but they better move fast.


----------



## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

atlantadan said:


> Alot more losses are coming, as we all move to the HR20, to get the HD channels


The vast majority of the DTivo's still active are SD units. They may not be eager to trade them for an HR20 if they are still hooked to an SD TV. But I still expect next quarter even more DTivo's will be turned off or die than this quarter. The trend has been increasing for over a year now.


----------



## Mark Lopez (Jan 1, 2000)

Uh oh, some of the lemmings are straying from the pack.


----------



## guins (Oct 9, 2001)

I had to jump to a D* DVR this week. I've had TiVO since '99 so to say I'm used to TiVo is an understatement. The DVR is serviceable but it is not a TiVO. In a perfect world D* and TiVo would re-unite!

But what other viable option is there? I'm not switching to Dish....not changing hardware. I'll never go back to cable....analog tv on a widescreen is crap. Plus constant price increases. FioS? No thanks.

Personally as much as I Loooove TiVo I'd never pay a TiVo subscription price on an HD TiVo in addition to my D* bill. I get DVR service for free (lifetime sub. grandfather). If TiVo offered lifeitme I'd consider it. but then again what good is that after TiVo is bankrupt?


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

There is no "viable" option, if you want HD DVR capabilities....
Especially if you want the newer HD channels.


----------



## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

HiDefGator said:


> Keep in mind the market Tivo is in is about to be flooded by well financed competitors. Both Sony and Phillips have recently annouced DVR functionality for cable. Others wil join them...


Tivo has always had well-heeled competitors, going back to DISH, Replay and UTV. What none of those competitors had was a product anywhere near as good as Tivo. You can flood the market with all of the inept competitors you can think of, and Tivo will still probably stand tall above them as the premiere platform.

One problem Tivo has is that folks just don't see how good Tivo is if they haven't yet experienced it, so those folks accept whatever is cheaper and compatible. And many of those who have only had Tivo get blindsided when they move to something else, expecting it to be about the same. As we well know, it's not. So Tivo has always had an image problem. Tivo has never had successful evangelists or missionaries to spread their gospel, and that has hurt them badly. If folks really understood how good Tivo is before they made a decision, Tivo would fare much better.

There's only one way to get the word out, and it certainly isn't by overpricing their hardware and service in a market where subsidies to the customer rule the day.


----------



## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

HiDefGator said:


> Keep in mind the market Tivo is in is about to be flooded by well financed competitors. Both Sony and Phillips have recently annouced DVR functionality for cable. Others wil join them...


Tivo has always had well-heeled competitors, going back to DISH, Replay and UTV. What none of those competitors had was a product anywhere near as good as Tivo. You can flood the market with all of the inept competitors you can think of, and Tivo will still probably stand tall above them as the premiere platform.

One problem Tivo has is that folks just don't see how good Tivo is if they haven't yet experienced it, so those folks accept whatever is cheaper and compatible. And many of those who have only had Tivo get blindsided when they move to something else, expecting it to be about the same. As we well know, it's not. So Tivo has always had an image problem. Tivo has never had successful evangelists or missionaries to spread their gospel, and that has hurt them badly. If folks really understood how good Tivo is before they made a decision, Tivo would fare much better.

There's only one way to get the word out, and it certainly isn't by overpricing their hardware and service in a market where subsidies to the customer rule the day. THey need to put out a box at a competitive price so that folks who don't understand how good Tivo is will make the leap of faith.

And they can't do it without partners. The only real success they had was when they partnered with DTV. They need to make another smart deal like they made with DTV. OR maybe just make a NEW deal with the NEW DTV. Get a bunch of cable MSOs on board, put out a standalone HD box for OTA and sew up that niche, make a deal to get their software embedded in other platforms (Mac OS would be a good choice). As a matter of fact, Steve Jobs should take some of that extra 200 million in iPhone money he gouged out of the early adopters, and think really hard about buying Tivo with it. If every new Mac had Tivo embedded in the OS, then we'd really have something. Tie that into iTunes instead of hoping folks will walk into Starbucks with their iPod touch and buy songs over wifi.


----------



## Mark Lopez (Jan 1, 2000)

TyroneShoes said:


> Tivo has always had well-heeled competitors, going back to DISH, Replay and UTV. What none of those competitors had was a product anywhere near as good as Tivo. You can flood the market with all of the inept competitors you can think of, and Tivo will still probably stand tall above them as the premiere platform.


Here we go again.  Let's compare nearly decade old equipment. And there are still many Replay/UTV folks who think their units were superior. IMO the only reason Tivo won out was because they were more or less first to get their unit out on the street in quantity before DVRs became popular. And in a tight market, that is the one that usually wins.



TyroneShoes said:


> One problem Tivo has is that folks just don't see how good Tivo is if they haven't yet experienced it, so those folks accept whatever is cheaper and compatible.


And the other problem is the Tivo lemmings who think no one else can produce a better product and refuse to even look at anything else (and make these sort of statements with zero actual experience with them). Tivo is not perfect! As I've said many times, 7+ years and little has changes with the core Tivo DVR functions. But oh boy, we finally got folders, what an innovation, and let's get all excited because we 'may' get an undelte function that was asked for during V1.  Oh and let's also ignore all the other bugs they introduce whenever they give us one of these huge advances. 'f' should be rolling out any month now.


----------



## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

I think that one reason the Tivo is liked by so many people is because it was developed by a company that had one purpose in mind - selling dvrs, unlike the cable and satellite companies that have added the dvr as an afterthought. TIVO has thought long and hard about the usability and functionality of their product. The other companies have concentrated on getting the basic functions to work without much thought on ease of use, and therefore don't enjoy the huge acceptance and praise that Tivo does.

Hopefully, Tivo will find a model that will keep it vibrant and alive, because I'm sure that most of us here (excluding the previous poster) would like to see Tivo succeed.


----------



## Mark Lopez (Jan 1, 2000)

RS4 said:


> TIVO has thought long and hard about the usability and functionality of their product.


I'll sort of agree with this. At least that's how it was in the beginning when this forum first started (with maybe a few dozen members) and Tivo actually listened to what we had to say. Then at some point, the $$ took priority over listening to what the users wanted. Then when they spent (wasted) that $50M on those stupid ads that no one understood, I lost faith in the company management and their ability to remain the dominant DVR. Guess I was right.


----------



## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

Mark Lopez said:


> Here we go again.  Let's compare nearly decade old equipment...


And just why is it that you find aything wrong with that, Mark? Anything ever on the market is always fair game for comparison. What are we supposed to compare it to?

It seems that there are but two choices for comparison, current equipment, or older equipment. In either case, Tivo still wins hands down, warts and all. All of the "well-heeled" competitors have had nearly a decade to successfully steal Tivo's original concepts, functionality, reliability, and expandability, and so far exactly none of them had had much success doing that in any of those categories. Those that ever got even close are out of the picture already.

I wasn't aware that comparison was such a sin. On this forum, it's usually thought of as helpful information.



Mark Lopez said:


> ...the other problem is the Tivo lemmings who think no one else can produce a better product and refuse to even look at anything else (and make these sort of statements with zero actual experience with them)...


I really hope that the finger you're wagging so hard isn't pointed in my direction. I agree that such folks exist, but as a tiny minority, so I hardly would characterize that as "the other problem" or really any kind of problem at all. It's been months since I've seen one pop up on this forum.


----------



## mkinn (May 15, 2002)

I'm keeping my HR10-250, even as I add an HR20. I record locals in HD off-air, and PBS HD mostly. I can't get PBS HD on an HR20. I'll have to use the HR20 for the newer channels, but this way I don't have recording conflicts often, and my wife can use one while I use the other.


----------



## Lije Baley (May 12, 2004)

mkinn said:


> I record locals in HD off-air, and PBS HD mostly. I can't get PBS HD on an HR20.


What??? The HR20 will record OTA, just as well as the HR10. My two HR20s both receive the local PBS HD signal OTA.


----------



## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

Lije Baley said:


> What??? The HR20 will record OTA, just as well as the HR10. My two HR20s both receive the local PBS HD signal OTA.


I think he meant to say that DirecTV doesn't supply an Mpeg4 version of PBS and most other independent stations - only the big 4.


----------



## Mark Lopez (Jan 1, 2000)

TyroneShoes said:


> It seems that there are but two choices for comparison, current equipment, or older equipment. In either case, Tivo still wins hands down, warts and all.


Ummm... Did you even read the thread title? It said 145k 'lost' customers, not gained customers. Doesn't exactly look like a hands down win to me. <shrug>


----------



## DarkAudit (Oct 16, 2003)

I thought I could stick with my SA TiVo with my D* H20 receiver. I was wrong. I thought I could upgrade to an HD TiVo instead. I was even more wrong. The decision to not include the ability to use a set-top box with the HD TiVo was the tipping point for me. I hope to get an HDTV this Christmas. If so, the SD TiVo will be nigh-useless if I want to watch programming with the TV's HD resolutions. I did a test recording using my computer monitor as an HDTV and 1080i picture format. The H20 also sent the signal in SD to the TiVo. When I unhooked everything and went back to check the recording, it looked awful. The HD channels were over-stretched, and the SD channels were squished.

To top it off, I have the ESPN GamePlan subscription. TiVo refuses to update the schedule on those channels to show actual games on Saturday. They only have a 2-hour block of generic "ESPN GamePlan" over and over again. The SD NFL Sunday Ticket channels had similar listings for Sunday.

I'm keeping one SA TiVo for the TV I'm not going to upgrade to HD or record games on, but I will cry a little inside when I go to TiVo's site and turn off *my* favorite box.


----------



## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

DarkAudit said:


> I thought I could stick with my SA TiVo with my D* H20 receiver. I was wrong. I thought I could upgrade to an HD TiVo instead. I was even more wrong. The decision to not include the ability to use a set-top box with the HD TiVo was the tipping point for me. I hope to get an HDTV this Christmas. If so, the SD TiVo will be nigh-useless if I want to watch programming with the TV's HD resolutions. I did a test recording using my computer monitor as an HDTV and 1080i picture format. The H20 also sent the signal in SD to the TiVo. When I unhooked everything and went back to check the recording, it looked awful. The HD channels were over-stretched, and the SD channels were squished.
> 
> To top it off, I have the ESPN GamePlan subscription. TiVo refuses to update the schedule on those channels to show actual games on Saturday. They only have a 2-hour block of generic "ESPN GamePlan" over and over again. The SD NFL Sunday Ticket channels had similar listings for Sunday.
> 
> I'm keeping one SA TiVo for the TV I'm not going to upgrade to HD or record games on, but I will cry a little inside when I go to TiVo's site and turn off *my* favorite box.


You are going to love college football in HD. Go buy the new TV now before you miss another saturday.


----------

