TiVo’s new CEO seems to be on something of a press tour, having first revealed TiVo+ to Bloomberg, followed up with a CNN hardware bombshell in an effort recapture consumer interest and marketshare:
Early next year, the company will release a dongle that costs about $50. For now, the device is built to run on Google’s Android TV, according to Shull. The dongle can be plugged into the back of a TV and will load up TiVo’s service for broadband customers and also use AI to make recommendations, similar to TiVo Plus, but as a hardware solution.
I find CNN’s “for now” hedge fascinating. I’ll go ahead and assume product details are still being fleshed out, but imagine it’ll be more DISH Air TV than Amazon Fire TV, headlined by TiVo+/What to Watch content recommendation based upon the services we subscribe and augmented by video they’ve licensed. And you know how they hit the low fifty dollar price point: TiVo’s gotta sell some ads. I am hopeful they won’t forget about us DVR owners and intend to also port over the upcoming streaming client, to provide an inexpensive, lighter-weight TiVo Mini alternative.
The company hopes increase their total headcount to fifty million customers next year, with this upcoming TiVo Stick leading the charge. While the favorable pricing helps, it’s crowded out there and their marketing muscle ain’t what it once was. For context, they dropped below 1 million revenue-generating retail TiVo owners in 2013 … and I can’t imagine that number has gone up.