TiVo Rolling Out on Comcast

DVR Vendor Hopes to Stem Subscriber Losses by Integrating with Cable Operators

By Jon Hemingway -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/11/2007 5:40:00 PM

TiVo’s rollout over Comcast’s cable systems is finally underway.

The two companies are partners in a multiyear deal to make TiVo’s digital-video-recorder service available to Comcast subscribers as a downloadable software install that would be an additional choice to the customer’s existing DVR. The deal was struck in 2005, but the technical development of the service meant that it would not be available until this fall.

While neither company is detailing the extent of the rollout, they have confirmed that the first users who are not Comcast employees have the service. The service was expected to be available first in pockets of metro Boston before gradually rolling out throughout Comcast’s New England footprint throughout the fall.

TiVo is hoping that integrating its service with cable companies will offset some of its subscriber losses from DirecTV, which stopped promoting TiVo in favor of a box from News Corp.’s NDS Group. TiVo’s net subscriber loss in the first half of the year was 247,000.

In a separate announcement this week, TiVo said it struck a digital-music deal with Rhapsody, an online-music provider jointly run by MTV Networks and RealNetworks. The deal will allow TiVo users with broadband connections to access Rhapsody’s digital-music offerings such as its library of 4 million songs and thousands of Internet-radio stations.