TiVo Community Forum Archive 1
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TiVo Community Forum Archive 1 (http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/index.php)
- TiVo UK (http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=14)
-- direct tv sales tivo (http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?threadid=182516)

Posted by lolita on 06-29-2004 11:53 AM:

direct tv sales tivo

I have just read that Murdoch and directtv has just sold 4% in Tivo's shares, does this mean that Murdoch, now that has sky italy, wants to put Tivo in difficulty so that he can buy Tivo ?

If this is the case, in the near future we will have Sky + with the Tivo software, how bad would this be ? this could explain why sky is still supporting tivo and it has both systems.

Murdoch wants Tivo; Murdoch wants to buy Tivo by putting Tivo in difficulty, he has done this with canal + : he had a share with stream, tele+ 's opponent, then tele+ part of canal + was cracked and with huge debts, he bought tele+ and merged with stream; sky italy is now chancing from seca to nds.
We don't have any sky+ or tivo, but i would guess that by december we will have sky +, then in a couple of years we will have tivo + !
At that point Murdoch would have direct tv, sky uk and italy: he would know what we watch and make his paytv even better; also he would know what other people not on sky are watching... this is the very reason why the uk market never went well: he sabotaged Tivo here, now he is sabotaging the usa market, and in the end he will have it all.
And he will be able to have a super tv, where his opponents gets nothing.
I think this great because we will have a super quality TV.
And in 50 years we will have sky europe too.

Posted by Gavin on 06-29-2004 01:23 PM:

Re: direct tv sales tivo

quote:
Originally posted by lolita
I have just read that Murdoch and directtv has just sold 4% in Tivo's shares, does this mean that Murdoch, now that has sky Italy, wants to put TiVo in difficulty so that he can buy TiVo ?

If this is the case, in the near future we will have Sky + with the TiVo software, how bad would this be ? this could explain why sky is still supporting TiVo and it has both systems.


Unlikely, Murdoch has a history of keeping things in house. Looking at Sky, the encryption is done by NDS who are a part of NewsCorp . Sky+ was developed by an arm of News Corp. Changing from SECA to NDS might cost money, (which no doubt is getting pushed down to the subscribers) but he then doesn't have to pay royalties to a 3rd party.

Why would he throw out S+ for TiVo when S+ cost millions to develop and implement, and to then have to change it to TiVo makes no sense. Using the SECA example he'll probably move directtv to a form of S+ rather than TiVo. Why buy something that duplicates something in house, it may be better for the end user, but there has to be a financial or marketing advantage in it for news corp, and TiVo in the UK would not be a marketing advantage as relativity few know about it. S+ is advertised a lot and as Sky is prevalent in a lot of households free advertising on the sky channels is possible. Most people who take sky+ are probably Sky viewers anyway who take it as an upgrade rather than just getting sky and going to Sky+ immediately.

Murdoch didn't ruin TiVo in the UK, bad Thompson advertising did, I saw the adverts, saw it paused live TV and thought so what. £600 for a box that paused live TV no way (£600 as it was £399 for the box and £199 for the sub). If it had been advertised better, ie telling me about season pass's and wish lists I might have bought one earlier, but they didn't, and I didn't. I bought one as they became very cheap (£100 plus Sub) and wish I'd bought one before, but until I used one I'd have never known the difference

Sky do TiVo support in the UK, that thats just a business deal nothing more, if he didn't offer the support someone else will, and it's probably historic, Sky Digital did have some recommendation deal with TiVo them before Sky + started.

Murdoch cannot do Sky Europe (yet!) due to distribution rights set by the Hollywood companies. Hollywood still sells rights on a country by country basis, to give them the most competition, if they did european rights to say star trek, then the country broadcasters (ie the BBC, Rai Uno in Italy I think) would not want to buy them, Would the BBC want the rights to broadcast in France or Italy, of course not. Until Hollywood changes this he cannot bid on europena rights, just for the countires he has system,s in, and even if they did would murdoch want to pay more for TV that is no use, remember Europe is a big place and just got better, whilst Sky Italia is not a hard thing to imaging who would want satellitte rights to the new europe like Lithuania when theres probably only a few thousand people with dish's?

Posted by lolita on 06-30-2004 12:15 PM:

yes but

Yes of course sky europe can't be operative before 30-40 years !
In the meanwhile he could create more local sky tvs.
Maybe the next stop will be Germany or France who knows !

BUT, if tivo was to go on sale, Murdoch would acquire it then he could have all his s+ boxes converted into Tivos; further, his S+ can't be used with cable, dt or terrestrial; Tivo can.

And with Tivo+ in every house in most european contries Murdoch would have access to what people are watching; he would have all these datas that others haven't and he would be able to give the public the perfect TV.

He would become the absolute king with a tivo in every house, think about it.

Posted by Gavin on 06-30-2004 12:37 PM:

Getting off Tivo here but...

quote:
Originally posted by lolita
BUT, if tivo was to go on sale, Murdoch would acquire it then he could have all his s+ boxes converted into Tivos; further, his S+ can't be used with cable, dt or terrestrial; Tivo can.

And with Tivo+ in every house in most european contries Murdoch would have access to what people are watching; he would have all these datas that others haven't and he would be able to give the public the perfect TV.


Murdoch has very little stakes in the transmission of terrestrial TV, In the US his channels are carried by others, and they pay for the ability to do that. In Europe there supplied by Sky or as the US carried by others, who pay for it. If he had wanted boxes that could take cable, terrestrial or any other form it would have been in S+ as we have it. It's not so that pretty much says he really only wants people to use his systems.

Tivo in the UK do not record data on what people watch, I suspect the data protection laws in europe prohibit it too.

What makes you think he wants to make perfect TV. Look at sky's output, most of it is bought in US stuff, Murdoch buys big series (usually after they've started on the terrestrial channels and become popular) and used them to get people to subscribe, it's not about perfect TV it's about pulling in subscribers. Channel 4 in the UK had friends, it was so so for a while then became huge, Sky bought the rights so if you wanted to watch you had to pay, same with a lot of sports, he buy's the rights and if you want to watch you have to pay. Remember Sky in it's early days was free then became a subscription channel. BSkyB made 260 million pounds in 2003 and thats the real reason for keeping everything in house.

Posted by iankb on 06-30-2004 12:41 PM:

Murdoch doesn't make money from selling Sky+. He makes money from the subscriptions to the satellite distribution service. Therefore, he has absolutely no incentive in supporting PVR usage for cable or terrestrial. Quite the opposite in that he wants to 'force' people on to satellite, and would love to buy TiVo and scrap it, so that Sky+ (and therefore satellite) were the only options.

__________________
Ian.

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