News Corp Screws TiVo

A lot of us feared this would happen. DirecTV officially dropped TiVo. News Corp, the parent company, owns a firm that has their own DVR, so that’s what DirecTV is getting stuck with. Of course it is going to be garbage compared to TiVo, but it doesn’t matter. Users will be stuck with it just the same. According to the LA Times, two-thirds of Tivo’s 3.3 million subscribers are from DirecTV and 77% of TiVo’s new subscribers are coming from DirecTV.

As I mentioned when News Corp first acquired DirecTV, this is not unexpected. For my part, I’d say it’s bad news for us DirectTV subscribers. Cable (Comcast) where I live is awful, so my options are limited and I have no idea what my TV experience is going to be like in the next few years as our TiVos start to die off (or be killed by DirecTV).