RSSTiVo Subscriber Base Passes 3 Million
By Ed Oswald | Published February 18, 2005, 12:31 PM
Digital video recorder service TiVo reported Friday that it had passed the 3 million customer mark at the end of January, adding 251,000 TiVo-only customers and 447,000 DirecTV customers.
"Last year, we launched an aggressive growth plan that included increasing our subscription acquisition spending to grow our base, strengthen our market position, and fuel our recurring revenue model," said Mike Ramsay, TiVo's Chairman and CEO. "We accomplished our goal of doubling our sub base to over 3 million subscriptions."
TiVo has come under increasing pressure in recent months to show results and assure its investors that it could survive without DirecTV. At CES 2005, DirecTV showed off its own DVR, causing speculation that the partnership may be coming to an end. On top of that, TiVo CEO Mike Ramsay and President Marty Yudkovitz both announced their resignation within weeks of each other in January.
To make matters worse, TiVo users have reported numerous glitches within a recent software upgrade made to the service's software.
Despite TiVo's optimism, Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox doesn't expect the situation to improve.
"According to Jupiter Research forecasts, satellite-based DVRs have the greatest installed base, with cable-based DVR expected to snatch the lead in a few years. While the market consolidates around cable- and satellite-based DVR, standalone unit install base will decline steadily over the next five years," Wilcox told BetaNews.
They still have some obstacles to ovecome. For instance, being unable to directly hook up a digital cable line to Tivo, at least here in NYC, is something that holds almost everyone here back from using it. If I have to set the Tivo and then program the cable box, it's no longer something that's efficient for me.
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I would really like to see more improvements to the interface and better controls of shows. Like not being able to record up to a certain minute instead of 5 minute intervals.
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There's a reason why "TiVo" and "DirecTV" are used in the same sentence -- it's made FOR DirecTV, mostly due to the way their "channel selection" functions.
Most "digital cable" companies are only 1/4 FULLY digital. The rest of the channels are just as crappy as the "analog" counterparts with subpar sound and simply horrid picture quality.
If I were TiVo's CEO I'd not WANT to go to digital cable and be associated with their crappy programming.
BTW: I have regular cable at my apartment (the one that costs like $50), but I get it for free from my apartment so I'm not going to be getting anything different any time soon. I'm not praising it by any means, though, because the quality and service you get with these companies is horrid. NOW if they were going to install a few DirecTV satellites in our apt and gave us the choice, I'd pick DirecTV hands down ... Better movies on demand, better support (from what I've experienced), and all digital channels? mmm.
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