Seems like I’m not the only one displeased with TiVo’s new pricing initiatives… Alex of TiVo Blog is considering a new hobby, HDTiVo is considering Vista, and the 477 posts on the TiVo Community Forum suggest there are many confused and/or angry customers. TiVo responded today with a Fall 2006 Pricing FAQ to clarify their new plans.
Q. What happened last Sunday and why?
A. TiVo modified its pricing plans to lower the upfront cost for its Series2TM boxes to customers. It also made TiVo pricing consistent for both tivo.com customers and retail customers.Q. How can you justify increases in some of the service fees?
A. The overall price that a customer pays for the TiVo box and service came down in most, but not all scenarios. You can still get TiVo service for $12.95/month, but with a 3-yr commitment. The upfront price of the Series2 box was either lowered or went away completely depending on the model. You can also get a TiVo box and service for significantly less than $12.95/month when you prepay for 3 years of service. As another example, you can get a single tuner TiVo DVR with one year of service for $199 total under the new plan. Under our previous pricing, the offer would have cost a total of $224 — $69 for the box and then $155 for one year of pre-paid service. Overall, we want to reward customers who expect to utilize the TiVo service for a longer period of time by offering discounts for multiple year commitments and prepaid plans.Q. How does this change what I am paying today?
A. The new pricing doesnt affect any of our current customers rates for boxes that they own. If you are a monthly customer today, the monthly fees on your current boxes will not change with this change in pricing. This also applies to boxes currently covered under our multi-service discount program. New pricing applies only to new boxes purchased.