By Deborah Yao, Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --TiVo Inc., the pioneer of the digital video recorder, hopes its new DVRs coming out this spring will keep the company relevant in an age when broadcast and broadband will be combined in TVs.
The new TiVo Premiere boasts a thinner, sleeker look with a revamped menu and features that will more closely integrate TV shows and Internet content. A search for an actor, for instance, brings up his movies that are coming up on TV or available for rental or purchase through Amazon.com, as well as related YouTube videos.
“This is a whole new chapter in TiVo’s evolution,” CEO Tom Rogers said in an interview. “We’re moving toward ‘get anything you want whenever you want it.'”
In doing so, the company also hopes to regain the cachet that made the word “TiVo” synonymous with TV recording – a verb that has faded in use with the rise of generic recorders that cable TV companies make available to their subscribers. TiVo could use a sales boost because the com pany has barely ever made money.
In the first few years after TiVo was founded in 1997, its DVRs were truly revolutionary. Today, the integration of TV and the Internet is available in a growing number of devices, from Moxi DVRs to Internet-enabled TV sets. TiVo has to work harder to stand out.
Its answer is the TiVo Premiere, due to hit retail stores in early April in TiVo’s first product launch in more than two years. The $499 Premiere XL will be able to store up to 150 hours of high-definition TV on its 1-terabyte hard drive. The $299 Premiere can store up to 45 hours of HD TV on its 320-gigabyte hard drive. The DVR uses Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash software, which is widely deployed on the Web and will enable TiVo to let third-party developers create applications for the new units.
The prices of the new DVRs are comparable to the current line. They will require subscription fees ranging from $12.95 a month to $299 for three years. Customers can also choos e to pay the fees in one lump sum of $399 to last the life of the unit.
TiVo also fixed a few annoyances for customers. Viewers of a TV show can now surf the menu without having to leave the show. It will shrink to a small window and keep playing. Searching for shows will be easier with a new remote that has a keyboard. But it costs extra and won’t be available until late summer or early fall. Pricing has not yet been set.
A new disk-space bar will show how much storage is left. And a new video bar across the menu screen will show what’s popular or recommend shows you might want to watch. Previously that required navigating several menus.
“TiVo has Amazon on its boxes, YouTube and Blockbuster and (the list will) likely grow over time,” said Tony Wible, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott. “TiVo helps aggregate all this stuff.”
Although TiVo could claim its product was superior to the generic DVRs provided by cable and phone companies, its base of cu stomers, who are typically big TV aficionados, has shrunk to 1.5 million from an all-time high of 1.7 million in 2008. DVRs from the cable company can be compelling because consumers can lease them for a comparable monthly fee, without having to buy the unit.
That, and high research and development expenses, has made TiVo a consistent money loser. TiVo, which is based in Alviso, Calif., has had only one year with a net profit. That was the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2009, when it got $103.3 million after taxes for prevailing in a patent lawsuit against Dish Network Corp. Regulatory filings show that TiVo accumulated net losses of more than $600 million since its inception in 1997.
In hopes of consistently turning profits, TiVo has been changing its business strategy.
The company is licensing its menu guide and features to Comcast Corp. and Cox Communications Inc. to replace the on-screen guide used in cable DVRs. It is developing a box exclusively for Direc TV Inc. that will work with the satellite TV operator’s system. Rogers said these won’t have all the features of the new TiVo DVR. But customers of cable TV operator RCN Corp. will, because RCN will be leasing TiVo’s new DVRs to its subscribers.
Wible expects TiVo to sell more of its own DVRs to smaller cable companies and license the technology to bigger cable providers. The bigger companies would find it too expensive to replace millions of DVRs and likely would opt to download TiVo’s software instead.
If subscription TV companies won’t pay a license fee, TiVo has another strategy: taking them to court. TiVo holds many patents related to the DVR and is suing operators it believes has infringed on those rights. In addition to the case it brought against Dish, TiVo is suing AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.
“Overnight Success” Has Been More Than A Decade In The Making For Meghann Fahy and Eve Hewson
Meghann Fahy and Eve Hewson, two of the stars of Netflix's whodunit "The Perfect Couple," have news for you if you want to call them breakouts: They've been working in this business for more than a decade.
Fahy made her TV debut in 2009 in an episode of "Gossip Girl." Hewson's first big film role was in 2011's "This Must Be the Place." They do concede, however, that it's recent TV roles — "The White Lotus" for Fahy and "Bad Sisters" for Hewson — that have led to new frontiers of opportunity.
Susanne Bier, who directed "The Perfect Couple," says both Fahy and Hewson are "going to be big stars."
"They certainly have proper, profound star quality, Both of them in very different ways," Bier says. "Both are incredibly creative, incredibly smart, and also have a impressive insight as to who they are. You can be a great actor or actress and not necessarily really know who you are yourself. And they do."
Hewson, 33, whose dad is U2 front man Bono, may have grown up in a famous family but she's now in demand in her own right. She will next be seen in a second season of "Bad Sisters, " out in November. She's in Noah Baumbach's next film, alongside Adam Sandler, George Clooney and Riley Keough. She's also been cast in Steven Spielberg's next production and is set to star opposite Murray Bartlett in a racing series for Hulu.
Fahy, 34, is in production on a limited series with Julianne Moore and Milly Alcock called "Sirens," written by Molly Smith Metzler ("Maid") for Netflix. She also has two films in the can with Josh O'Connor ("The Crown," "Challengers") and Brandon Sklenar ("It Ends With Us").
The two actors spoke candidly about this phase of their careers. This interview has been condensed for clarity and... Read More