TiVo: Not Just a Box but a Revolution

Calling on broadcasters and advertisers to adapt to the new "anywhere, anytime" model that is the cornerstone of the TiVo platform, President and CEO Tom Rogers sees great opportunities for those who can adapt quickly and make use of new "transactional opportunities." His current goal is to seamlessly blend the nearly unlimited online content with traditional TV content in an intuitive, compelling user experience. Advertisers, broadcasters and distributors must adapt to the new reality.

In a keynote at BANFF 2010 on Tuesday, June 15th at the Fairmount Banff Springs, Rogers began by commending cable and satellite providers for increasing the amount of content available to viewers in the last 25 years. But, he said, viewers are hungry for online content and want it all in a simple viewing experience. Addressing that need, Rogers, highlighted the new TiVo Premier Service which offers over 6 million content choices from Amazon, Netflix and YouTube, delivered alongside traditional TV. Rogers sees TiVo as the complete experience that today?s TV audience seeks. He says cable and satellite providers have done a poor job of combining TV and online content, and showcased Virgin Media?s decision to use TiVo as the user interface as the future. It also marks the company's push into the European market.

In addressing the longstanding criticism that advertising has been hurt by TiVo?s ability to skip ads, Rogers was adamant that the "3 minute pods" of traditional advertising were no longer tolerated by viewers and they must find new paths to the consumer. He urged them to embrace more web-like ratings metrics, something TiVo currently collects to enable more accurate tracking of ad views. In order to survive, Rogers continued, advertisers must "demonstrate their value-add proposition."

Rogers concluded by saying the traditional network schedule wasn?t as important as it was in the past and that network should get on board with offering a "seasons pass" to their content, allowing consumers to choose how that content is viewed. There is no turning back - viewers won?t give up on when and where they get their favourite content, so it?s up to creators and distributors to catch up.

Kevin Fraser