TiVo Surpasses 2006 Subscriber Count

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In conjunction with the opening of The Cable Show, that Mari is attending, TiVo has fired off a press release trumpeting a record 4.5 million subscribers — the majority of which originate from cableco-deployments.

TiVo Inc., a leader in the advanced television entertainment market, today announced that it has more than 4.5 million subs who are now enjoying the TiVo experience, surpassing the previous record number of 4.45 million hit over eight years ago in December of 2006. 

While more than half of TiVo’s subscribers were DirecTV customers back in ’06, in 2014 nearly half of TiVo’s 4.5m subs are deployed by Virgin Media in the UK. Meanwhile, TiVo’s retail subscriber count remains stagnant at late 2004 levels despite the superior Roamio platform… and perhaps why they recently brought on a seasoned, new Chief Marketing Officer.

17 thoughts on “TiVo Surpasses 2006 Subscriber Count”

  1. Couple quick things that really shouldn’t be difficult. Get Amazon Prime on Tivo working really well. Get a really good streaming on Android. Discount Tivo Stream to drive adoption of the Tivo box.

  2. Tivo was one of the first set top boxes to offer Netflix streaming and they proceeded to lose millions of customers. I haven’t seen any evidence that offering additional streaming services would boost sales. It appears that the opposite is true.

    Making a Tivo customer aware of all the content available through streaming is like those guys who delivered blocks of ice telling people about refrigerators.

  3. Regardless of where you stand, it seems odd that TiVo would emphasize or lead with this new record eclipsing an 8 year old number. I’d have left 2006 out of it (but obviously *I* followed their lead as their story arc and MSO pivot is fascinating) – not sure it puts their sales/situation in the most favorable light, although perhaps their goal was to indicate resurgent interest.

  4. I think they wanted to celebrate what is considered a turn around for the company. But I will agree, the story could have been presented better.

  5. I’m glad that Tivo is having success somewhere, even if it is not in the U.S. I am a big fan of dvrs and the Roamio, in particular. I hope that Tivo sticks around for a long time because they are the only game in town if you want to use your own dvr on cable or fios.

  6. I think there are many of us that remember the terrible “One Box” marketing used to push the premiere. While I am not sure having streaming apps will sell any more DVRs if they want to market it that way then they need to deliver.

    Sub $100 blu-ray players do better than TiVo does at streaming and $100 pure streaming boxes from Roku, Apple, or Amazon blow TiVo away.

    If they were serious about being something more than a DVR their top DVRs should have blu-ray built in and rival Roku’s streaming ability and there should be a “mini” high end option that also does it all.

    Roamio’s are great DVRs but still don’t measure up to the competition in streaming.

  7. “Roamio’s are great DVRs but still don’t measure up to the competition in streaming.”

    I think you undersell this.

    Roamio’s aren’t just great DVR’s, they’re the best DVR’s ever made by anyone. That’s gotta count for something…

  8. Chucky: I do agree with you that TiVo Roamio’s are the best DVR’s ever made – that’s why I own one! That said because of the complexity and possible issues with cable cards and tuning adapters I really don’t expect to see TiVo’s stand alone sales increase much.

    I also question if better streaming would sell anymore Roamio’s or not. Given that most new TVs are “smart” as are most new Blu-Ray players, plus the low cost of streaming only boxes it really doesn’t seem all that important to me that my DVR do streaming.

    What I actually like more than streaming with TiVo is the ability to auto download pod cast and the ability to down load rentals from Amazon as my Internet isn’t all the reliable and streaming isn’t much fun many nights. But it appears TiVo isn’t really focusing much on those abilities anymore.

  9. @atmusky

    I remember that “one box” interview with the CEO of TiVo years back and I thought, “This is all fluff.. They can’t even get their own (ugh – Flash) interface complete and he’s telling us about how this will be the “one box” for the living room.”

    It was stupid.

    TiVo, at this point, should have positioned themselves so that people think, “Yeah, if you’re getting cable, just get the TiVo. It’ll do all of the normal cable stuff plus it does all of the streaming and does it really well. Why have 3 boxes under your TV when you can just have TiVo and everything is just there.”

    Instead the general attitude is more along the lines of, “Oh, I remember when I had a TiVo. They WERE great.. I have the DirecTV box now and it’s a lot better than what TiVo had plus I don’t have to fork out $500 for it. I have a Roku and AppleTV for all the streaming stuff..”

  10. Based on the hybrid broadband cable DTA TiVo is showing at The Cable Show this week and whatever Boxee and Comcast had agreed upon (before being acquired by Samsung), it’d be nice to see some sort of smaller, cheaper CableCARD-less device in retail — fewer barriers in regards to cost and complexity.

  11. This comment is late, but IMHO, the trumpets about the subscriber count and mentioning 2006 was all about getting affecting the STOCK PRICE for just a bit.

  12. Congrats to TiVo. It is an achievement. A lot of people never thought they could make it, even this far.

    Of course, it took 8 years and plenty of really bad decisions……..really bad……….No, I mean REALLY bad.

    Flash, anyone? Anyone? No one? Hmm.

    The whole Premiere era was a complete disaster. Thank GOD for European cable. They don’t mind unfinished stuttering products and they actually made a REAL deal with TiVo that WASN’T just to avoid the lawsuit payouts. I’m sure Comcast and DirecTV exec’s laugh hysterically at the mere mention of TiVo.

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