Starting “next week” (we suspect this means Wednesday, March 15) the lifetime subscription will no longer be available for purchase for standalone TiVo and DVD/TiVo combo units. So if you’re looking for a lifetime subscription, get in quick! You can order a unit from us until then and we can, by request, email you your TiVo Serial Number (TSN) so that you can purchase lifetime on a unit.
Lifetime TiVo service subscriptions last for the lifetime of the box and aren’t transferable to another unit, but are transferable to a different person. Lifetime currently costs $299 and can only be purchase directly from TiVo (as with all TiVo service).
In addition, the monthly cost of a TiVo subscription is $12.95. It’s unclear at this point whether that will remain the same or not for those initially activating new units.
Current TiVo subscriptions are said to be unaffected by these changes. So if you already have lifetime, you’re all set. If you’re paying $12.95 per month now (or $6.95 for a secondary box on your account) then according to the press releases, your price won’t increase (although they have previously increased monthly fees from $9.95 to $12.95).
But now might be a good time to switch over to lifetime service. The break even point (neglecting the time-value of money) is 23 months. So if you think you’ll have your current unit for two more years (who wouldn’t?) and if you have the cash to lay out, we recommend it. In the end, if you want to get a newer box down the road, your old one should be worth some good money on eBay too, so factor that into the equation.
One more note, just to be complete about the world of lifetime. DirecTV TiVo users were once able to purchase lifetime for their units also, but that’s long gone. If you did have lifetime on one of these combo boxes, DirecTV now applies it as a lifetime DVR service on your DirecTV account. So now you can change around DirecTV DVRs at will and you still avoid the $5.99 DVR service fee. But moving a lifetime box to a different account doesn’t transfer the lifetime service to that account.
3 replies on “The End of a Lifetime!”
Where does the other change I’ve been reading about come in – that one of the reasons for change is that the price of the tivo is going to be bundled into the price of the service? Doesn’t that leave companies like yours in a precarious position?
Does anyone know if it’s possible to purchase a lifetime subscription before purchasing the box to which it will apply? We’re planning on getting a Series 3 when they’re available and would love to have the lifetime subscription for it!
You will be able to purchase a combination box/service with no upfront fees. That’s coming. But for most of our customers, they come to us for larger boxes, and we’ll still sell them. And service will still be available for them.
The price for the box/service combination is actually an increase over buying a box and subscribing it separately. TiVo is essentially lending back the cost of the box, and they will be charging a premium for it.