TiVo: from liberating us from advertisers to getting in bed with them

Interesting article on TiVo today. Now, as we all know, TiVo introduced the "disruptive" set-top box that allowed us to record shows to our heart's delight--so TV became a slave to our time instead of vice/versa.

And gritting our teeth through advertisements no longer needed to be the price of watching our favorite shows. Nope, now we pay a price (enter TiVo) to skip those pesky ads.

And it's well worth the price.

Funny thing, while TiVo is coined as a "disruptive" technology by broadcast advertisers...to consumers, it was always the advertisements that were disruptive. (duh)

But as of today, the company will introduce a "product purchase" feature that, in TiVo's various onscreen menus, links to buy products.

According to the article: “Just a few years ago, we were viewed with great paranoia as the disruptor,' said Thomas S. Rogers, chief executive of TiVo. 'Our goal now is to work with the media industry to come up with ways to resist the downward pressure of less advertising viewing and create a way for advertising on TV to become more effective, more engaging and closer to the sale.

What we are trying to do is to create all the underpinnings of a future business model for television.'"

(Oh, I should note that TiVo is partnering with Amazon in order to deliver this service.)

Personally, I'm a big fan of TiVo because it's a brand that represents a movement, a friendlier mindset, that is more closely aligned to the desires of consumers. It's a hero in that it liberated the "viewing audience" from having to live around a certain schedule determined not by them but the networks...and even more so by liberating people from having to live through commercials.

But even that statement of "trying to create all the underpinnings of a future business model for television" feels far less about consumers. Much more about models.

And far less friendly ;-(.

We'll see how it plays out and how intrusive this non-intrusive-and-really-engaging model really is.

The article again is here.

Comments

[Brian Kirk]

thanks for sharing this article CK. great overview of what TiVo/Amazon are up to.

[Stephen Denny]

ck: this isn't a bad thing. It's actually pretty interesting and not consumer-unfriendly at all. You see, you like, you buy. From what I read, this isn't intrusive at all, but highly integrated. See Men in Black, buy the Hamilton watch.

Now, for the reality check, I'm not sure how many people are actually going to go through the motions to do it -- the article says 4 million HH's, so whatever sensitivity analysis you want to do says this number ain't going to be very high.

Still, let's applaud the angle. Do you see this as a negative?

[CK]

@BK: Hiya ;-). Thanks for popping in and give my best to Peyton.

@Stephen: Hear you. But I'm unsure on how intrusive it will be (or evolve to be--once you open that door...).

And I'm really unsure on how much success TiVo will have in going from a
save-us-from-ads-and-give-us-TV-on-our-time! beloved brand (for lack of a better impromptu term) to a "TiVo-to-the-rescue-of-TV-advertising!" brand.

Yep, TiVo needs to make money; but in redirecting the ship--or jumping to an all new one--it doesn't align with the consumer-friendly brand. And, yeah, I get they need to court their new beloveds (advertisers), but in your comment alone (where you talk "you like, you buy!") I see more consumer-friendly talk than I did in the CEO's sound bites. I'd like to see them talk (reassure?) to the audience that bought and WOMmed them in the first place.

All that said, I do look forward to following its progress/regress over the next 12 months.

PS: yep, only 4mm HHs and I understand that they want to license the process/whatnot to the cable company DVRs in order to get the real bucks. Basically their current base is their beta/onramp to ROI with the biggies.

[Nathan Snell]

The saddest part about these models, is, by what they're just described, they're not innovative. TiVo was something that started out, as you say, a technology that was disruptive to an industry (not necessary a disruptive technology as Claymore coined it, but you quoted it so- yay : ) ). If I recall, they've been getting squeezed pretty hard by competition as of late. It's unfortunate if this is their response to competitive squeeze, and probably unlikely that it will result in any sort of reversal.

[Nathan Snell]

Er. Typo. I meant Clayton, not claymore. Very different : )

[Alan Wolk]

What's interesting about TiVo is how they've let themselves become forgettable thanks to the DVRs offered by the cable companies.

Now cable companies don't offer the same wonderfully user-friendly inuitive interfaces that TiVO does. But (sorry Armano) they offer something else- one stop shopping: most cable company DVRs are built into the cable set-top box (that box you use to change channels) and the menu is integrated into your cable menu. And like the Wolk family, many people figured out that if you're really only recording about a half dozen shows, the cable company DVR's lesser interface is only a temporary issue and the integration is more compelling. (Oh, and billing you monthly for it is genius too- all part of the bigger cable bill.)