We’ve said it a few times on this blog, and we continue to insist that a TiVo is much more than a DVR. Now, in his letter to shareholders, Tom Rogers, the CEO and President of TiVo, goes further: DVR means “digital video retriever.”
The letter is a good read. He writes about the future of the DVR industry, the future of broadcast TV, and the future of home entertainment. Naturally, he sees TiVo as central to all three, with its “one box, one remote, one user interface.”
Two quick points here about this letter:
-He notes that TiVo is the only brand in this space. I’d say that AppleTV is certainly in this space (while it doesn’t deal with broadcast material, it hits the other bases with movies, TV shows, music, interactivity, etc.) and even Vudu, Hulu, and the new Netflix box are here, potentially.
-While I do see the convergence of living room media all funneling through a box like this, I also think that those of us in the DVR industry do face a bigger transition eventually, which is that the living room will cease being where all of this media is consumed. So much is viewed on desktops and laptops and, increasingly, cell phones, that the centrality of video to the living room is really soon to pass.
Anyway, the letter to shareholders is a good read.