The DVR Is Not Dead - TiVo Posts Gains

With so much talk lately about cloud services, streaming services, and on demand viewing, it's nice to hear some encouraging news about the growth of DVR subscribers from the premier service, TiVo. In Q3, TiVo grew over 100,000 units a complete turnaround from the previous quarter when they lost more than 30,000. So what changed? "Basically, the key takeaway point is that TiVo stopped focusing heavily on retail sales and is distributing more through cable companies -- a strategy that appears to have worked." New deals with cable partners like RCN, and better relationships with DirecTV and Comcast.

So what is TiVo's next step? Perhaps a better relationship with Echostar and a discussion to integrate Slingbox technology with TiVo. A stronger push with its cable partners to increase its rollout of TiVo set top boxes with a ton of marketing promotion behind it.

So here is to TiVo. Let's hope that this first quarterly increase in four years is not an anomaly but rather the start of renewed growth for the company. A great product deserves great marketing and higher use.