Just over a year ago, during the site’s hiatus, TiVo announced a deal with Spain’s largest cable operator, ONO, similar to their deal with Virgin Media in the UK. In fact, very similar, the same Cisco hardware Virgin is using in the UK will be used in Spain. As usual with TiVo, no time frame for deployment was given at the time of the announcement. But in February 2011 word came out that Ono would be launching TiVo in September.
Now we have new reports confirming the launch is on for September, and providing some more info. The launch of TiVo isn’t just adding TiVo to Ono’s existing service, Ono will be launching their first HDTV channels and TiVo will be the platform for the new service. That should provide a nice boost to TiVo demand.
Ono’s HDTV initial channels will be Mediapro’s Gol TV, News Corp.’s Fox, Sony’s AXN and Sony TV, Viacom’s MTV Live HD, Spain’s national public broadcaster TVE HD, Grupo Planeta’s national private broadcaster Antena 3, Mediaset España’s Telecinco HD and Mediapro’s laSexta HD. Those viewers in the Catalonia region will also have access to the public channel TV3 HD.
It is nice to see TiVo executing on these global deals, they have a number of them in the pipeline. We’ll see in a week if the Best Buy Insignia TiVo-loaded HDTVs launch as leaks indicate. TiVo has deals in the US with Cox, Charter, and Comcast working their way toward roll out. TiVo has DVR development deals in place with Technicolor and Samsung for the global market. And their next international carrier launch should be the largest satellite television provider in Northern Europe, Telenor’s Canal Digital, serving Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. I suspect that may involve the Technicolor and/or Samsung DVR deals as both are for European satellite DVRs.
Via Rapid TV News.
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