Note, I’ll say right off the bat, that this is an unsubstantiated rumor. PVRBlog’s Matt Haughey is reporting on something a friend passed on to him. His friend, Matt, recently switched from cable to DirecTV and was told by two DirecTV reps that TiVo would be returning to DTV soon.
Personally, I don’t put a lot of faith into this particular rumor. But it is a slow news day, and it is interesting. However, in general I do think there is a very good chance of DirecTV introducing new TiVo-based DVRs in the future. The relationship between TiVo and DirecTV is clearly warming up again, with the previous announcement of a software update coming in 2008. As control of DirecTV shifts from News Corp to Liberty Media, the odds improve, as Liberty Media is a major corporate investor in TiVo. Comments from TiVo’s CEO, Tom Rogers, on last week’s financial conference call seem to hint at more news to come relating to DirecTV, beyond the software update. I don’t think we’d hear anything until 2008 – it is unlikely we’d see a box in time for the holidays, and neither TiVo nor DirecTV would want to poison sales of their current products by announcing something that won’t be out until next year. But the TiVo HD platform would make a good platform for a new DTV box.
