DirecTV/Tivo Broaden Marketing Relationship

By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 2/21/2002

El Segundo and San Jose, Calif. - DirecTV and TiVo have agreed to broaden and extend their strategic marketing relationship enabling the digital video recorder (DVR) company to offer its Series2 equipment on the satellite TV provider's platform.

Under the new terms, the two companies will develop a next-generation advanced DirecTV receiver, based on TiVo's recently announced Series2 platform, which provides a suite of DVR-based services.

In addition, DirecTV will continue to market and distribute the current DirecTV receiver with TiVo service, which is available nationwide at leading consumer electronic retailers.

The agreement also gives DirecTV the flexibility to use TiVo technology for its own services offering either by itself or in conjunction with TiVo, the companies said.

DirecTV will take the control of customer acquisition and support, as well as packaging and branding of DirecTV's DVR services. It will also distribute TiVo's services that enable advanced automatic recording capabilities and the delivery of promotional video to the receiver's hard-disk drive.

The companies expect to have the new low-cost product available for the 2002 holiday season.