Comments on: TIVO ANNOUNCES NEW PRICING PLANS

By: etherial

etherial — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 11:01:05 +0000

Lifetime Service was really an introductory offer. TiVo’s already losing money on many of the Lifetime Service contracts. It was there as a carrot to help give the company capital when it was brand new. It’s no longer brand new.

By: velvet_frogg

velvet_frogg — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 04:19:57 +0000

This sucks. I’ve bought two TiVo’s in the past 5 years now I think it is. Lifetime service for both.. And I would have bought the lifetime service on any future ones. Now I’ll be hestiant in the future about buying more units.

By: megazone

megazone — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 01:50:14 +0000

From what I’ve picked up, ‘next week’ is next Wednesday, but don’t bet your life on it.

You’ve already purchased the box and a 12-month subscription. If nothing else, you have that 12-months. After that you could continue to pay $12.95 month, since users under the existing pricing are not effected by the new announcements. Since the new pricing announced today includes a free box, it wouldn’t apply to anyone who already *has* a box. The not-yet-announced pricing plan changes for boxes purchased at retail would be more likely to apply to previously purchased boxes. But the word so far is that if you have a contract now, you can continue under those terms indefinitely.

If you activate before the lifetime option is removed, you can definitely go lifetime instead. If you activate after that – I dunno. I’d say you’d be stuck having to go with just the one year that is paid for, but you could probably get customer service to bend and allow the lifetime. To be safe, if possible, do NOT wait – activate it now, while lifetime is definitely still offered.

As I pick up more info, I’ll post it.

By: chlaal

chlaal — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 01:43:24 +0000

Okay, so for those of us who purchased a box recently under the rebate, and supposedly have until March 31st to activate the service (or lose the rebate), what happens?

I bought the box plus 12-month subscription, and supposedly upon activation I would have the option of upgrading to lifetime for $145. If I don’t activate the service until “next week” (when lifetime goes away — and what exactly does “next week” mean anyway) then what happens? After the 12 months are up, I guess I’m covered by what the press release is calling “service-only options”? Is it still $12.95/month at that point? How much would it be for another year? etc.?

if I activate the service tomorrow, will I still be able to upgrade to lifetime?

very confused….

By: anonymous

anonymous — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:21:26 +0000

Aha, I found some info on TiVoCommunity.com:

Quoted from TiVoOpsMgr:
“Existing subsciptions are not affected, so if you currently pay $6.95 a month, you will continue to pay that for that contract, until you cancel (or until you no longer have a qualifying unit on your account).

Best regards,
Stephen

EDIT: Legal made me add the parenthetical. My bad. ”
from http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=290514&page=2&pp=30

Good stuff to know!

By: megazone

megazone — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:12:28 +0000

Yeah, I’d like to know what the new plans will be for units not purchased from TiVo.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:11:44 +0000

I was considering buying the lifetime subscription for one of my TiVos, and this change just hurried that a bit.

$300 on the credit card isn’t so bad, I’ll be able to pay it off in 3 months.

Since there hasn’t been any announcement of a pricing change for secondary TiVos, I think I’ll keep that one monthly.

By: buran

buran — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:35:58 +0000

Problem with lifetime is that I know I’m going to be getting a Series 3 for access to HD stuff, so it is unfortunately not worth it at this point â€” which may be exactly why they are doing that.

By: megazone

megazone — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:07:15 +0000

It may have been mentioned in the part of the call I missed, I’ll see later, but so far no indication that existing subscribers will have their plans changed, though you probably could if you wanted to. Since you already have a box and paid for it, it’d probably be one of the new plans for retail units, which I haven’t seen any numbers for yet.

By: yakko7178

yakko7178 — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:03:55 +0000

crap…and I never have enough on hand to pay for lifetime, and was hoping to be in good enough shape by the end of the year to do it. Tivo should reward me for being a monthly customer since 2000.

By: cambler

cambler — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:03:26 +0000

So what happens to those of us with three units, paying $12.95 a month for the first one, and $6.95 a month each for the other two?

Do we stay the same? Or must we now pay more and commit to a time plan?