Tivo first came to prominence as the company which allowed its customers to record whatever they wanted from television whenever they wanted – anything, any time – with the touch of a button.
And it allowed its customers to skip commercials.
Woohoo! It turns out that customers really like this. In fact, Aunty talked about just how much Tivo and ReplayTV customers like to skip commercials just last week.
So Tivo’s business model is making money by helping customers skip commercials.
Now that they have perfected that whole “viewers skip commercials” model, Tivo has developed a special widget which they are selling to advertisers to help advertisers to..you got it …convince viewers to watch their commercials.
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So Tivo’s business model is making money by helping advertisers get their commercials in front of customers who are paying them to be able to skip commercials.
Said Tivo’s obviously shrewed CFO, David Courtney, “TiVo’s proprietary advertising technology presents a real opportunity for advertisers to enhance the effectiveness of traditional television advertising.”
That’s what he really said.
What he must have really meant was “TiVo’s proprietary advertising technology presents a real opportunity for Tivo to charge advertisers to gain back the eyeballs of customers who are paying us to keep advertising away from them.”
And amazingly, the advertisers are happy to pay the fee for their special widget. Indeed, General Motors and the WB Network have already signed up!
Explained industry analyst Daniel Ernst, “Rather than being a problem for advertisers, TiVo is trying to be an innovation for advertisers.”
I dunno that the old “get them coming and going” model is particularly innovative, but it could certainly be lucrative.
Summarized Kimber Sterling, Tivo’s Director of Advertising, “We’re optimistic that this is a good move for us from a revenue standpoint.”
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Companies that play both ends against the middle will lose. I have 3 TVIO’s and now I will take a hard look at replacing ALL of them.
Thought I’d clicked on The Onion or BBspot for a minute there.
How ballsy – seems you can put anything past some executives.