Multichannel News has done the math and concludes that the ten largest cable providers have expanded their CableCARD footprint by a mere 5,000 decoders during the last three months. While I haven’t verified their calculations, I too perused the NCTA’s most recent CableCARD-related filing with the FCC:
The five MSOs who are required to report today – Cablevision, Charter Communications, Comcast Corporation, Cox Communications, and Time Warner Cable – have deployed over 502,000 CableCARDs for use in retail CableCARD enabled devices. When the CableCARDs deployed by the next five largest incumbent cable operators are included, there have been over 536,000 CableCARDs deployed for use in retail devices by the ten largest incumbent cable operators.
Any way you slice it, there’s been a very small number of retail devices tapping digital cable over the years. And even assuming TiVo subscribers are responsible for the majority of those new 5,000 CableCARDs, I’d say their direct-to-consumer business is in serious jeopardy. Of course, it’s common knowledge that TiVo’s been bleeding subscribers and they know their situation better than anyone… Which is why they’re hunkering down with a large stockpile of cash while awaiting possibly more favorable conditions, defending their intellectual property (with hopes of additional cash), and succesfully diversifying by marketing their platform to the MSOs, who pretty much control the gameboard.