TiVo Loyalists: A Forgotten Market

Original date: April 26, 2006 11:58 PM by sonnik

People still occasionally come to sonnik.com looking for TiVo related information. Despite the fact that I don't have all sorts of 'hack' downloads anymore (I did in the early, early days of TiVo hacking), I'm still loyal to the brand. I think that there are also many others that feel the same way. I also feel that companies like DirecTV, Comcast, and Cox seem to be neglecting this.

You may have seen articles like this one. Essentially, it states that DirecTV is extending their "support for" TiVo - basically just assurance that users of TiVo branded DVRs aren't suddenly shut off. DirecTV recently started exclusively promoting their own version of a DVR device; finding an old TiVo branded DirecTV receiver is quite a task these days.

The last I read is that TiVo is working on something with Comcast, but I haven't seen anything solid yet.

Here's the problem - the early adopters had TiVo early on. They tried these generic DVRs and think they are worthless. At web sites like TiVoCommunity.com, you'll actually see comments directly from the loyalists that despise the generic DVR. Of course, you'll find a slight bias at a user-based community - but I challenge you to find comments from someone in support of the generic DVR at ANY website.

That's a loss for the cable/satellite television providers. Their generic (non-TiVo) DVRs aren't reliable, and the user-friendliness is lacking. Customers realize this, and they're willing to pay the extra for a stand alone TiVo unit. They can contract TiVo service and make it easier for everyone, but they'd rather try to see if they can be more profitable keeping everything in house.

I recently dropped Cox Cable for my television provider; I found a TiVo DVR80 at a retailer I activated with DirecTV. If DirecTV drops TiVo in 2008, I'll go back to whoever is supporting them.