TiVo Will Die

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Jim Louderback of PC Magazine believes that Tivo will die as a company due to: Moore's law, HDTV, and DirecTV. I agree that a $1000 HDTV Tivo box is a non-starter if the cable companies will do something for 1/100th the price. But Tivo's intellectual property and experience is more valuable than Louderback thinks it is. As 2004 plays out with more PVRs everywhere and HDTV slowly taking off, we'll see if Tivo will have a seat at the table or not.

Over the years I've observed that the more arrogant and less responsive a company gets, the more likely it's about to fail. Oddly, when the going gets tough, most companies don't do a gut check and rededicate themselves to service. Instead, they circle the wagons and go into a preventive defense—and search for someone to sue.

In the early years of TiVo, I'd get instant service. TiVo even gave me the name of a special ambassador—a strategy meant to ensure that the company got a fair hearing in the press, on the Web, and in other public forums. Today my inquiries go unanswered—or even worse, I never receive a promised response. Hold times on the help lines are interminable: It took me over half an hour last week to determine why the company had charged me $14.

TiVo Will Die [pcmag.com]

by Gen Kanai March 18, 2004 in TiVo

Comments

I'm not saying TiVo is faultless, but this sounds like the similar "Apple will die" story that appears every few years. Hopefully the worst that will happen to TiVo will be it becomes a niche player (like Apple).

Personally, I'm willing to pay extra for the superior TiVo interface -- I doubt prefers the Comcast digital on-screen UI, which is one of the worst things I've ever used!

Posted by: KJC at Mar 19, 2004 5:27:08 AM

Louderback can generally be counted on to be wrong about virtually anything he says. So I clearly need to go pick up some TiVo stock. :D

Posted by: Roger Benningfield at Mar 19, 2004 6:48:34 AM

Not only is TiVo's intellectual property extremely valuable, perhaps even more valuable is TiVo's mindshare. TiVo is almost synonymous with PVR now - even competitors try to refer to their products as being TiVo-like. And in addition to the raw mindshare is the outstanding TiVo UI. When it comes to consumer devices, the user interface is more important than almost all techincal specifications. The TiVo UI makes using a PVR easy, and consumer devices live or die based on ease of use.

Posted by: Aaron Rittmaster at Mar 19, 2004 8:13:22 AM

anyone have a phone number for Corporate Customer relations?? ... say, vice president level ?? The regular customer relations people are brain dead ... i have a serious complaint that a person of responsibility needs to hear ...

Posted by: DAN at May 31, 2005 6:01:10 PM

I hated my Tivo. Concept great - implementation awful. Yes, the UI is unbearably slow, the 'recorded' image even on best quality was not something i'd want to watch regularly, the remote is smart enough to change my tv volume but not the channels (?), the box i got 'hummed', and although it promises to record 'first runs', that out and out lie. First weekend using it it fill itself full of reruns, despite despite my seeting 'first run only' (while the 'info' section clearly showed an original air date of 10/05, beats me how something that simple couldnt have been implemented). beat my head a bit more when i made the mistake of calling customer service and the guy on the phone sounded like he had never even used a Tivo... yes, i did set the 'first runs only' switch. And yes, customer service is as bad as they say. 4 phones calls and one hour on the last on hold to get my refund - two people and on hold for a second 20 minutes to get the supervisor that was telling me there was no refund for the service, until I had to pull up the website read her what their own website said and what the back of the service contract certificate said. Unbelievable, they were denying their own '30 day money back guarantee', and then, after the hour on hold, they acted as if they were doing me a favor giving me the refund. Tivo isn't good enough. Someone step up and do it right. Please.

Posted by: Ann Benning at Jan 24, 2006 3:54:23 PM

TiVo Will Die

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