TiVo Halves Prices To Drive Sales

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-/1/hi/business/3549102.stm' target='_blank'>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-/1/hi/business/3549102.stm</a><br /><br /></div><i>"TiVo, the maker of digital television recorders, has halved its prices in the US to just $100 (£54), as part of a $50m plan to increase user numbers. The California-based firm, whose subscription-based service allows users to record and pause live TV, wants to attract 10 million users by 2008. TiVo, which currently has 1.6 million subscribers, also hopes to increase sales to $1bn, up from $141m last year."</i><br /><br />This comes immediately after the news about DirecTV potentially dropping TiVo as its default PVR. The company's share price recently hit a 16 month low today and is still falling from what I can see. I really hope they are able to come out of it. I guess they need to find some other cable operator to hook up with.

[Chris Gohlke]

At least for me, it is not the hardware price, but the monthly subscription. I am tired of being nickeled and dimed for subscription revenue. If I buy something, I don't want to have to keep paying to use it. The real dealbreaker for me is that even if I bought the lifetime service, it would then not be transferable to another unit if the first broke. Also, if I combined the price of the unit and the lifetime service at the time I was looking, it was comparable to the cost of the Panasonic DVR with DVD recorder that I purchased instead.