It's become part of the U.S. pop culture lexicon - to "TiVo" a television show and watch it later - but as TiVo Inc. expands into Canada, the company that pioneered personal video recorders now finds itself playing a tough game of catch-up.
California-based TiVo announced plans yesterday to begin selling its unique brand of personal video recorder (PVR) at Canadian retail outlets in the next few weeks, part of an international expansion that includes Australia and Mexico.
Though TiVo has become a household name in the United States since the late 1990s, it has all but ceded markets like Canada to rival manufacturers.
More than 1.2 million homes in Canada now have some sort of PVR, which can store hundreds of hours of TV shows on their hard drives. Of those, only a small number are believed to be TiVos that have been bought by hard-core fans who shopped in the U.S. or over the Internet.
The vast majority of PVRs in Canada are either sold or rented directly to consumers through cable companies and satellite providers, or through retail outlets.
While TiVo markets its device as a smarter, more user-friendly version of the average PVR, the cable and satellite companies' hold over distribution poses the biggest threat to its expansion, analysts suggest.
"They are the Kleenex of the category," said Kaan Yigit, who tracks growth of the PVR market. "But there is a big hurdle there because they're not available through any of the major [cable or satellite] carriers."
The PVR market, already a multibillion-dollar industry, is expected to double over the next five years. Only about 20 per cent of U.S. homes have them right now, while that number is about 10 per cent in Canada. However, TiVo has battled eroding subscribers and a falling share price in the face of competition from other manufacturers.
TiVo plans to be on store shelves in Best Buy, The Brick, London Drugs and Future Shop before the holidays, everywhere but Quebec. Most PVRs simply plug in and record TV shows, but TiVo is a subscription service, which also commands a different kind of consumer.
Its boxes will sell for $199 - considerably less than other PVRs that retail for $400 to $600 in some cases - but the company charges $12.95 a month for TiVo services such as the ability to program its machines by remote, and personalization features that record programs based on the preferences of its users.
"When we look around the Canadian market, the boxes that are being sold by cable companies are generic, low-functioning and extremely expensive," said Joshua Danovitz, vice-president of international operations
at TiVo.
He doesn't see the five-year head start other PVRs have enjoyed as a hindrance.
"TiVo really had to educate people in the U.S. on why they would need one of these. It's actually a different game for us [in Canada] where somebody has already educated the market," he said.
But the cable and satellite companies aren't likely to give any ground to TiVo. If a PVR war develops, it will be TiVo's technology against the mass distribution of other PVRs.
"It's an exciting brand, it's become part of the language in the U.S., but I don't think they'll ever get there in Canada," said Pat Button, vice-president of marketing at Bell ExpressVu, which has been selling and renting PVRs to its satellite TV customers since 2002.
For now, TiVo can't bring a high-definition version of its box into the Canadian market, because the technology isn't compatible with distributors here.
But plans to work with Canadian distributors may be under way. TiVo has been looking beyond retail in the U.S. by jointly developing a box with cable giant Comcast Corp.
Rogers Communications Inc., Canada's largest cable operator, may do the same.
"We've always admired the personalization and recommendation aspects of TiVo," said David Purdy, vice-president of Rogers Cable. "We've had discussions with TiVo in the past and my understanding is that they are keen to work with cable companies and integrate [their device] into the set-top box."
The gadget gap
Personal video recorders are more popular in the U.S.
Canada
9% of all Canadian households (1.2 million)
United States
19% of all U.S. households (22 million)
SOURCE: SOLUTIONS RESEARCH GROUP
TiVo v. PVR
Geek speak
PVRs, or personal video recorders, made their debut in Canada in 2002. They're called Digital Video Recorders or DVRs in the U.S., where the TiVo burst upon the scene during the tech boom.
Cost
A TiVo will set the buyer back $199 in Canada plus a $12.95 monthly subscription fee, which allows the machine to tap into a central scheduling system, be programmed by remote and record other shows its owner might like. A PVR costs $400 to $600, or can be rented for $10-$20 a month from cable and satellite providers.
Advantages
TiVo's software taps the preferences of its user to record other shows in addition to ones it's been programmed to save. Some DVRs can hold 200 hours of programming. Both can skip through commercials.
Grant Robertson