# Tivo Cancels Lifetime Subscriptions [usa only, uk not affected]



## AndrewDucker (Aug 24, 2002)

Well, they're stopping selling new ones, the old ones will continue to work just fine:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060308/sfw165.html?.v=1

(this is US news, obviously)


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## nathan (Feb 18, 2002)

I'm surprised that they didn't do this sooner than now. The lifetime sub option must have been put in place at the start to aid short-term cashflow whilst they built the business and generate some goodwill amongst those Tivo owners who paid for it.

IIRC in one of their account submissions Tivo stated that the expected lifespan of a machine is greater than three years; therefore any lifetime sub was essentially sold as a "loss", when compared to the potential income from a monthly sub.


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## KiNeL (Feb 6, 2006)

Hmmm......I wonder what, if anything, this means for the UK.

Will boxes currently either unsubscribed or on monthly will be denied the option of a lifetime sub?


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## Furball (Dec 6, 2001)

mmmmmm its all rather quiet on this front here  

The US forum makes for interesting reading though  

Any of our Admins know any more ?

Fur


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## ericd121 (Dec 12, 2002)

When Series 2 Tivos were released in the U.S., things were quiet here in the U.K. 
When Series 3 Tivos were previewed in the U.S., things were quiet here in the U.K. 
Now Lifetime Subscriptions are announced in the U.S., things are quiet here in the U.K.

There seems to be a pattern... 

And, indeed, an interesting conundrum for us devotees; 
*If* the only way we are going to get a Series 3 is with a monthly subscription, do we still want one?


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## GarySargent (Oct 27, 2000)

According to TiVo's research we do!


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## browellm (Oct 21, 2003)

ericd121 said:


> *If* the only way we are going to get a Series 3 is with a monthly subscription, do we still want one?


/raises hand at the back of the class/


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## thechachman (Nov 28, 2004)

Is there a difference in supplied guide data/etc between what a series1 / series2 / series3 would download each day?


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## Mike B (Sep 16, 2003)

Just to clarify, is this stating that are TiVo stopping selling Lifetime Subscriptions in the US, rather than pulling the service for exsiting lifetime subscribers (forcing them to go monthly) ?

It's just the thread title is slightly misleading....


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## pauljs (Feb 11, 2001)

Mike B said:


> Just to clarify, is this stating that are TiVo stopping selling Lifetime Subscriptions in the US, rather than pulling the service for exsiting lifetime subscribers (forcing them to go monthly) ?
> 
> It's just the thread title is slightly misleading....


Just not selling new lifetime subs


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## dirtypacman (Feb 3, 2004)

Lots of reading to do on this thread about the same subject:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=290514


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## sanderton (Jan 4, 2002)

No great surprise. We know that TiVo's accountants split a lifetime subs revenue evenly over four years. So the lifetime TiVos sold in 2002 are now falling off the revenue page. That's the year the thing really took off, so it's going to be hurting bad!

From the UK's point of view, as almost all TiVos were sold before the summer of 2002 when the final clearance £99 machines were sold, there will probably be a big drop off in their revenue from us over the coming months.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Well, we all know what TiVo Inc. need to do to counteract that, don't we...

*PULL THEIR CORPORATE FINGER OUT AND RELEASE A NEW TIVO IN THE UK*


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## GarySargent (Oct 27, 2000)

TiVo have confirmed to me that the UK subscription service is completely unaffected by the changes announced for the USA service.

UK subscribers will still be able to choose to take out a lifetime subscription, and the price will not be changing.


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## Furball (Dec 6, 2001)

.........for the time being eh ...... 

Fur


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Indeed. They'll change their mind by next week


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## pgogborn (Nov 11, 2002)

I think that the interesting part is not the ending of the lifetime subscriptions, it is, if I am interpreting the news correctly, that you will be able to pre-pay a one, two or three year subscription as part of the purchase price of the box.

Although it may not have meant a higher cost to the end user, I always thought it was psychologically flawed marketing to say to people take out your credit card to buy a box in a shop, take it home, take out you credit card again to subscribe it.


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## GarySargent (Oct 27, 2000)

Maybe they are going to stop the UK service in a year so they are happy to let people pay for lifetime subscriptions over here.

Why don't we just get all the conspiracy theories out of the bag?!

One day some of you will just sit down and enjoy using your TiVo and stop worrying about it


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## frogster (Jan 4, 2006)

ericd121 said:


> *If* the only way we are going to get a Series 3 is with a monthly subscription, do we still want one?


I don't.

I will never pay any monthly fee for services like this, any more than I ever rent things that I know I will use often. It's either a one-off fee (which I consider to be simply an integral part of the purchase price) or nothing.

For the same reason I will not pay a monthly fee to activate a Sky+.


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## frogster (Jan 4, 2006)

pgogborn said:


> I think that the interesting part is not the ending of the lifetime subscriptions, it is, if I am interpreting the news correctly, that you will be able to pre-pay a one, two or three year subscription as part of the purchase price of the box.


My understanding of this (as it relates to the US) is that US Tivos will now only be availble for a monthly fee with a minimum subscription period but with with no purchase price. This sounds like rental.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

It's actually more like lease-purchase, and is basically the same as the 'deal' you get when you subscribe to Sky's standard service in the UK. 

You agree to subscribe to the service for a minimum period and they give you a box for 'free' which is yours to keep once you have paid the subscription charges. The only difference is that TiVo in the US is offering to reduce the monthly fee if you sign up for 2 or 3 years instead of 1, and you get the option to prepay the whole lot for a further discount. 

At the end of your agreed initial period you keep the box and can resubscribe it on a monthly basis at the same price as people who bought their boxes separately. I get the impression from the posts by TiVo employees that they will probably be offering a further fixed-term deal - eg. 2 or 3 years - for a lower price, but as that time is still a year way they haven't fixed the prices yet. 

It's a shame about the loss of the lifetime sub - and I hope that pressure from users will persuade them to re-introduce it, even if at a higher price - but for the meantime, if this new pricing structure gets a couple of million more TiVos into people's living rooms in the US and makes TiVo Inc more profitable, then that can only be good news for us here in the UK


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## Furball (Dec 6, 2001)

GarySargent said:


> Why don't we just get all the conspiracy theories out of the bag?!
> 
> One day some of you will just sit down and enjoy using your TiVo and stop worrying about it


But Gary if we all sat down and started using our TiVos and not talking about when where and if TiVo are going to pull out/bring the series2/make us LT subbed people paymore , it would make this place a little boring dont you think   

Fur


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## pgogborn (Nov 11, 2002)

frogster said:


> My understanding of this (as it relates to the US) is that US Tivos will now only be availble for a monthly fee with a minimum subscription period but with with no purchase price. This sounds like rental.


I am far from certain, but I believe discounts are available for customers who pre-pay (i.e., a prepaid three-year plan is $469, vs. $610.20 on the monthly plan).


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## pgogborn (Nov 11, 2002)

blindlemon said:


> It's a shame about the loss of the lifetime sub - and I hope that pressure from users will persuade them to re-introduce it, even if at a higher price


I reckon the big problem is not just the price level of a lifetime sub, it is predicting how long a box with a life time subscription will be used.

The life time subscription scheme is an accountancy train wreck waiting to happen.


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## frogster (Jan 4, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> It's actually more like lease-purchase, and is basically the same as the 'deal' you get when you subscribe to Sky's standard service in the UK.


No, the Sky deal is very different. The Sky box and dish are yours from day one and are free, installation included. You undertake to subscribe to a viewing package for at least 12 months, after which time the box is still yours and you can use it to receive 200-odd channels (complete with the full EPG and all other functions) without paying anything at all to anyone.
Indeed, Sky will give you a box plus dish plus installation plus viewing card for the free channels for £150, without any requirement to subscribe. (But given that the minimum Sky sub over 12 months is only a tad more than £150 you may as well have that instead.)

Either way it is quite different to the Tivo offer being made in the US which seems to involve paying nothing upfront and a monthly sub over several years for a rented box that will not do anything when you stop paying and which apparently doesn't belong to you anyway and so presumably would have to be returned.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

frogster said:


> a monthly sub over several years for a rented box that will not do anything when you stop paying and which apparently doesn't belong to you anyway


Where do you get that from?

The minimum contract period is 1 year and TiVoPony and/or TiVoOpsMgr have both quite clearly stated that the box belongs to the customer once the initial contract is fulfilled. In fact, that's one of the things that some US customers are complaining about, as it means they are responsible for repairs if it goes wrong.

As for the box being useless without a sub, I don't know whether you can make manual recordings on an unsubbed Series 2 machine, but quite honestly, after a year of using it as a TiVo, who'd want to?


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## frogster (Jan 4, 2006)

The info that I read seemed to suggest that the boxes would be rented and not purchased. I'm glad to learn that they aren't.
I still doubt that the Tivo box will be much use without a subscripton, unlike the Sky box.


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

That news prompted me to get off my jacksie and go lifetime. Just did it now over the phone. Friendly TiVo CS guy said he'd not heard any plans to change subscriptions in the UK but like someone said, it doesn't mean it won't happen.


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## DeadKenny (Nov 9, 2002)

GarySargent said:


> TiVo have confirmed to me that the UK subscription service is completely unaffected by the changes announced for the USA service.
> 
> UK subscribers will still be able to choose to take out a lifetime subscription, and the price will not be changing.


I should think TiVo isn't concerned about UK as obviously there are no new subscribers anyway, only the odd few people with monthly subs who might want to turn lifetime which is likely very few anyway.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

DeadKenny said:


> I should think TiVo isn't concerned about UK as obviously there are no new subscribers anyway, only the odd few people with monthly subs who might want to turn lifetime which is likely very few anyway.


It would cost Tivo far more for one of their executives to have to write a report on the issue and discuss it at one of their board meetings than the cost of simply leaving things as they are.

Sky tell me they now only get a handful of Tivo calls a day so Tivo ought to be able to press to greatly reduce the annual cost of the support contract charged by Sky. Clearly Tribune won't charge any less though because the number of channels they have to support has actually gone up.


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## healeydave (Jun 4, 2003)

GarySargent said:


> TiVo have confirmed to me that the UK subscription service is completely unaffected by the changes announced for the USA service.
> 
> UK subscribers will still be able to choose to take out a lifetime subscription, and the price will not be changing.


Bloody good job, cos I'm buying them all the time


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

Why are people resurrecting a thread that is more than a year old, and treating comments made in it as if they were up-to-date?


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## healeydave (Jun 4, 2003)

Good point, I'm guilty of replying and not checking the validity of the thread, I just did as I always do add my two penneth when I see threads of interest in the recent listing page (and assumed it was a recent one 

Best not say anymore and let it drift away into history again


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## DeadKenny (Nov 9, 2002)

Apologies. It came up in a search fairly high on the list and I didn't check the date.

Still, though not news to everyone else it was news to me . Besides, my point was still relevant... i.e. no new customers 

Is this a 'no resurrect' forum then? I know some prefer not to resurrect them and others have a go if you create duplicate threads.


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