Seven and TiVo: a marriage made in what now?

Seven and TiVo have come together to bring the much sought after TiVo service to Australia.

WTF? They should have done this years ago and it seems, from the media release, that it’s only going to be available for free-to-air channels.

Seven Media Group will lead the creation of the digital platform to enable TiVo’s digital video recorder and service, including the award-winning TiVo user interface. The platform will be available for use by other broadcasters and broadband content owners to create a compelling, interactive, free to air digital terrestrial television offering. The TiVo Service will be available across Australia and will include internationally recognized TiVo features like SeasonPass recordings and WishList searches and allow users to access broadband content on their TV.

Honestly, if they were going to do this, why wouldn’t they try to make it a competitor to Foxtel’s IQ? Of course Seven, along with Ten, is still to sign up to digital rebroadcast through Foxtel.

Having two platforms competing for our attention would only be better for the consumers (us) and build uptake of such technologies.

TiVo, in the US, is a subscription-based service but gives its users access to all channels (pay and FTA). Will the people not taking up Foxtel be compelled enough to dive into this? Probably not if the FTA networks aren’t going to produce some amazing content.

Also, it seems to me that a large percentage of the population who would have been the first to take up a TiVo service have already purchased a PVR, built a media centre, download torrents, or have IQ.

3 Comments

  1. Its a case of closing the barn door after the audience has bolted.

  2. You can blame Foxtel, to a certain extent, that TiVo won’t cover pay tv – Foxtel have done something wacky with their digital delivery such that only iQ can record the Foxtel channels. You might be able to get around it with some hacking, but it’s not straightforward at all.

    There’s also the issue of Nine and their program guide – they sued IceTV for using it, under breach of copyright. An industry-wide electronic program guide may well be “on the way”, but who knows when… and with TiVo/Seven not giving too much detail at this stage – other than that TiVo will be released here “in the first half of 2008” – I ain’t holding my breath.

  3. I also think that it will fail as there is no way Ch9 would get on board (with it’s current owners) as it will be a rival to Foxtel.

    Tivo and Ch7 has no legs….no legs…;(

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