TiVo has pointed the finger firmly at its ill-fated relationship with Sky as the reason for its failure to break into the UK market, but is confident that the same mistakes will be avoided in its forthcoming collaboration with Virgin Media.
Speaking to TechRadar at the launch of TiVo's new set-top boxes in New York, Vice President and General Manager Joshua Danovitz explained that the reason TiVo withdrew from the UK in 2003 was down to the creation of Sky+ rather than any lack of enthusiasm from the nation for personal video recorders.
"I would say it's less a tech failure and more a partnership failure," explained Danovitz when asked about the company's exit.
"We partnered with a company [BSkyB] that wasn't 100 per cent dedicated to promoting TiVo and soon after working with us and coming to market started promoting their own technology.
"I think that that can be related much more to a corporate policy and strategy discussion than it is to a market readiness or market acceptance.
"Additionally, at the time TiVo was incredibly young – we went public in 1999 and launched our first product, and we were in the UK by 2001.
"I would say we had not conquered the US enough to send out large mature teams to other key markets and we were depending on partners to do so and the situation with [BSkyB] was 'well if this is the way it's going to work then we're not going to be able to support that'."
Virgin Media partnership
Danovitz explained that TiVo's partnership with Virgin Media – announced back in November and likely to see the first products by the end of the year – was based on a much more solid model than its previous foray into the UK.
"Since [the last attempt to come into the UK] in the US we have retail products – we partnered with DirecTV, with Comcast etc and we've now launched in Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, Austrialia and New Zealand.
"The way we are doing all of these partnerships are similar to the Comcast and DirecTV models. They own the consumer – there is some commitment to deploy and distribute – they do the marketing and we provide the service.
"So the model of working with Virgin is very close to what we are doing domestically in the US with the largest operators and what we are doing all of those international deployments."
Your comments (11) Click to add a new comment
windymiller
March 5th 2010
11. Wow, fred, thats the best fanboy rant I have ever seen. Or maybe your a salesman?
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badsector
March 5th 2010
10. In my opinion the TiVo was unsuccessful thanks to an atrocious advertising campaign. Clearly the advertising agency didn't have a clue what they were doing, and they didn't understand the product, and the "pauses live TV" "strap line" didn't touch upon the main benefits of the TiVo. My sister liked my TiVo so much I had to buy her one and it is still her favourite TV recorder. I wonder how much money TiVo flushed down the drain with some advertising agency in London?
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fred69
March 4th 2010
9. @ lovlid - how you obviously like to be controversial
The Tivo is by far the most superior pvr interface on the market. What planet you were on when you binned yours I don’t know.
When a 10 year old piece of kit can regularly sell for 100quid on ebay there is obviously a demand; read the forums and there is a fan base; read the VM forums and you will find there was a petition put in to get the tivo interface on the V+ box.
This isn’t a marmite thing; users love the tivo interface. And as for plastic – its no different from any other PC or consumer electronics box.
I can only assume you got a tivo in the first year and had the 1.0 interface; everyone else was patient and has the 2.x interface.
Mine, like many out there, are hacked to death with network cards, extra disk space and extra software for web access.
Of course you can do all this with a sky+ box!!!
And of course sky have these apps now that allow you to set up recording from your phone. Guess what, been there done that with my tivo for the last 5 or 6 years.
The problem with sky and virgin (and every other pvr ive used) is they are based on the premise of designers of VCR recording mentality. Fundamentally you have to know when the programme you want to want is going to be on; whether you look it up in the programme guide or set the time. Tivo’s best feature is it uses a directory method... it makes it easy to find what you want.
Other basics over V+ and sky+ are the way the buffer works (not for this reply) and flexibility over the ease of control of programme recording.
My v+ box get full of repeats of the same episode of a series. My tivo NEVER records the same episode twice.
So heap of s**t in your eyes, best pvr interface on market to other. I think you’re the one who is losing out, and its your choice to pick the lesser product.
As for the BSkyB battle, my view is this is reminiscent of the betamax vs vhs war – betamax was better but lost to the commercial superiority of VHS. Sky had the commercial advantage to let their Sky+ box win so tivo didn’t try to fight the battle they couldn’t win. They took stock, won the US market which made commercial sense for them and now they are returning to give us the benefit of newer technology but they are not going to compete with BSkyB on their platform, they are competing by going to the rival platform of cable and who knows maybe freeview with IPTV integrate.
The real success of these boxes will be the model for sale. If VM is their entry back into the UK, they need to get this bit right. Will the software roll out on the existing box or be a different v+ box? Will people have to buy them in shops or have as part of the VM contract? If under contract, will they cost more on contract than the existing V+ box?
The problem is consumers are tight fisted and want everything for nothing. Will they chose the tivo interface over paying for the movie channel? I think not. Movie channel will come first. Tivo can only succeed on the VM platform if it replaces the existing V+ software on the existing boxes and at a minimal incremental cost to cover the s/w license.
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lovlid
March 4th 2010
8. @ vollans.
Sorry mate, had one, scrapped one, don't want the tshirt. About the inlaws, live in a cave do they? Never seen any other pvr before?
@ browellm.
They have a duty to supply guide data, and I do believe Sky can claim the same support and a better following. As for tech support, is that local or third party? I do believe the company abandoned these shores to follow the gullible money in america.
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vollans
March 4th 2010
7. To lovlid, firstly I'd suspect he never touched one... There is hardly a piece of plastic on it - a real sturdy metal chassis and case.
Next, I'd say that there isn't many bits of tech that I still happily use 9 years later and think I'd be loathed to lose. The interface is absolutely intuitive.
We recently bought a second hand one for the inlaws, and it's the first time they've ever been able to reliably record TV.... And watch it afterwards...
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browellm
March 4th 2010
6. I couldn't disagree move with lovelid. The S1 Tivo still has the best UI of any PVR available in the UK today. That's a sad indictment of every other manufacturer, with Sky being the worst offender. As to being poorly made, there are still a few thousand S1 Tivo's being used and supported with guide data today. How many other 10 year old tech gadgets can say they have the same following or support?
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tenwiseman
March 4th 2010
5. After getting into an exclusive deal with Sky, and coming into problems with that - TiVo have only repeated the same exclusive deal with Virgin. This really works against UK consumers who would really like nothing to do with Virgin. Meanwhile TiVo equipment in Australia based on their version of DTT FreeView sells :-( ...
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psyfur
March 4th 2010
4. Tivo Vs newsgroups - I wont be swapping that's for sure
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lovlid
March 4th 2010
3. Biggest load of sh*te I have ever read.Tivo machines were poorly built, poorly updated pieces of plastic dung. The customer support from tivo was non-existant. And the company was a joke. Who does he think he's kidding?
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carlwaring
March 4th 2010
2. I think this one can be filed under "no sh!t sherlock!" ;-)
Whilst healeydave is correct wrt VM not covering the whole of the UK with their cable service, I don't think tthere is any reason why they cannot eventually also offer an IP-based solution to it's 'national' (ie non-cable) customers. Is there?
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healeydave
March 3rd 2010
1. TiVo needs to do a little more home work on the demographics and even though they'd like to trust the partnerships they make, they should take the Sky experience and do their own diligence in the technology coverage!
Take Virgin Media in the UK, it has some fantastic technology options with 50Mb Broadband and moving to 100Mb in the future but when it comes to service, despite what coverage they might claim, they are simply not servicing the vast majority of towns & cities in the UK.
Since the Telewest and NTL days and now Virgin Media, there has been little to non-existent expansion of its service infrastructure. They give people the impression typical of many big businesses in the capital that they have little interest outside of London.
This may suit TiVo as they have concentrated on Cable offerings themselves over the last 5 years but in the USA, Cable infrastructure is naturally included in new developments alongside the other services. This is not the case in the UK. Developers only consider the essential services like water, sewerage, gas and electric. Phone lines are even an after thought sometimes!
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