Back in May Kara Swisher interviewed TiVo CEO Tom Rogers at the D: All Things Digital conference. At the time only ‘highlight reels’ with excepts from the interview were posted. Now the complete interview has been posted in four parts.
In a filing yesterday with the FCC on the current status on CableCARD deployments the NCTA revealed that there have been a total of over 374,000 CableCARDs deployed for use in Unidirectional Digital Cable Products (UDCPs), such as the TiVo HD, by the ten largest cable MSOs, which cover roughly 90% of US cable subscribers. That may sound like a lot, but in their last filing 90 days ago in June, they reported over 372,000 CableCARDs for the same ten MSOs and 90% subscriber base. That implies that only 2,000 CableCARDs have been deployed to UDCPs in the past three months by the top 10 cable MSOs - combined. That’s nothing. It would also make me wonder a bit about the sales of the TiVo HD, since I’d expect nearly all of those to have at least one M-Card CableCARD.
That is, of course, if the numbers are true - and they may not be. See the table below and especially the first footnote1. Comcast’s numbers for September are estimated to be 10-15% lower than actual due to an internal error. We could be looking at an increase of more than 34,000 users instead of only 2,000!
While 34,000 would certainly be better than 2,000, it still isn’t really setting the world on fire. Maybe the M-Card is a ray of hope in those numbers - if customers who previously used two S-Cards are trading them in for a single M-Card on devices like the TiVo HD, it would result in a lower cumulative number. Still, I don’t expect that’s a huge number either.
This is not to say that the total number of CableCARDs in use is that small, not at all. Since the FCC’s ‘integration ban’ went into effect on July 1, 2007, forcing cable MSOs to begin using CableCARDs in their own STBs, those same ten MSOs have deployed over 7,800,000 CableCARDs in their STBs. So in less than fifteen months they’ve deployed more than twenty times the number of CableCARDs as have been issued for 3rd party UDCPs in the four years they’ve been available.
The integration ban was supposed to force cable MSOs to ‘eat their own dog food’ and thereby improve support for CableCARDs. The idea was that this would help foster the overall CableCARD market. Better support from MSOs would lead to more products, which would mean more 3rd party UDCPs in the field. For the most part, this hasn’t happened.
Why not? Well, I think I can sum it up in one brand name: tru2way. Starting late last year, and getting an official launch at CES in January, OCAP became tru2way and marked a push to get consumer electronics companies on board. Then starting with Samsung in May, followed by a larger push by Sony later that month, CE vendors started jumping on the tru2way bandwagon.
What does this have to do with slow CableCARD adoption? Well, these same CE vendors have held off on releasing UDCPs while they work on tru2way-enabled devices. Why invest in developing and marketing a unidirectional product when you’re going to obsolete it with a two-way product in a year? The first tru2way products are starting to trickle out, and there will probably be a bunch of them on display at CES in January. So I think the push for tru2way was a major contributor to lax CableCARD pick up. Vendors just haven’t been releasing CableCARD-enabled products so there aren’t many options for consumers, which naturally means not many cards are being deployed. Really the only major CableCARD product out there right now is TiVo. CableCARD TVs are thin on the ground. CableCARD-enabled Media Center PCs have had anemic sales. And Digeo outright canceled their Moxi CableCARD HD DVR.
CableCARD was slow out of the gate, and by the time MSOs had the infrastructure worked out vendors were already looking toward round two with tru2way and they just decided to sit round one with UDCPs out entirely. The deployment of SDV and the need to develop a Tuning Adapter, and to support it, was very likely a factor in that as well. I don’t expect to see any real pick-up in CableCARD utilization until a sufficient number of tru2way devices are available to consumers, and then I do expect to see a real uptick.
The filing also has information from several MSOs on their CableCARD pricing and install practices. To compare June to September:
| June Subs | Sept. Subs | Truck Roll | Avg. Truck Rolls | Avg. CC Fee | Avg. Install Fee | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cablevision | 16,239 | 16,475 | Yes | 1.1 | $2.00 | $46.95 |
| Charter | 27,795 | 28,208 | Yes | 1.1 | $1.50 | $32.00 |
| Comcast | 218,551 | 217,1681 | No2 | 1.06 | $0.00 / $1.773 | $10.43 / $25.144 |
| Cox | 24,274 | 24,496 | Yes | 1.1 | $1.99 | $24.00 |
| Time Warner | 57,404 | 59.962 | Yes5 | 1.25 | $2.266 | $23.75 |
1Comcast states that their September number may by low by 10-15% due to internal reporting errors.
The count for this reporting period of CableCARDs installed in one way retail devices in active customer homes is estimated to be 10-15% lower than the actual number due to internal Comcast reporting errors that are the result of an internal Division reorganization during the reporting period. The next quarterly report will more accurately reflect the actual count.
Since Comcast has such a large installed base this could be the reason for the seemingly small total uptick. The other four combined yield an increase of 3,429. Comcast’s apparent drop of 1,383 drags it down. But if they’re short just 10% they would actually have an increase of 20,334 users. And 15% would mean an increase of 31,192! So we’d be looking at a total increase of 23,763 to 34,621 - rather more than around 2,000. And that’s just from these five MSOs.
2Comcast allows self-installs in at least some areas - 68% used truck rolls, 32% were self-installs.
3First card is free, fee for additional cards.
4$10.43 if install is included with other services, $25.14 if purpose visit.
50.2% of Time Warner installs are self-install, which is negligible.
6The average is $2.26, but they report most divisions are $1.75 - which must mean the remaining divisions are rather higher to bring the average up.
A new channel has shown up on TiVoCast, TheWB.com. Right now it looks like there is just one program carried as part of the channel, Sorority Forever. Which describes itself as:
Phi Chi Kappa is the hottest sorority on campus. For every freshmen girl, getting in seems like a dream come true, but there are mysteries around every corner of the Phi Chi House. Behind the sex, the drama, and the beautiful people lies a terrifying secret.
Yeah, so I’ll be giving that a miss. But I do hope this is just a first step and more of the content from TheWB.com becomes available on TiVo, there are a few good shows there. It would be great if TiVo connected with more content sites like Hulu, CBS.com. etc.
Subscribe online or on your TiVo via Find Programs & Downloads -> Download TV, Movies, & Web Video -> Browse Other Videos -> All -> TheWB.com
Nothing two impressive this week from Amazon Video On Demand, though there are a number of free downloads that tie into the new fall TV season.
There is a Romantic Movie Sale which is offering twelve movies for purchase, not rent, at $5.99.
Recently ZDNet’s Ed Burnette lost a TiVo in a lightning storm. When that happened he decided to give Time Warner’s Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8340HDC DVR a try rather than having his old TiVo, which had lifetime but was not HD, repaired. Ed thought he’d try this because, as he puts it:
The Time Warner DVR box model was free, and the service cost $7.95/month. Also I was excited at the possibility of finally getting high definition content on my Sony HDTV. I asked some friends who used it and they seemed happy with it.
But the reality of the situation was not so rosy:
I can sum up my experiences with the Time Warner DVR in one word: Argh!
Ed enumerates the myriad of issues he experienced with the cable DVR in his article at ZDNet. From the terrible button-farm remote with unintuitive controls, to the lack of a priority list for the DVR’s version of Season Passes, to odd quirks during normal use (like the screen blacking when you pause playback and having trouble resuming playback), and more. And it sounds like his family agreed:
After two weeks of this I decided enough was enough. The family all agreed. We wanted TiVo!
Ed considered paying the $150 repair fee, which would really see him upgraded to a Series2DT with his lifetime transferred. But he’d had a taste of HD and native digital cable support, so he instead opted for the TiVo HD. After ordering his new TiVo HD, but before it shipped, TiVo announced the TiVo HD XL.
Knowing a good thing when he sees it, Ed canceled the TiVo HD and ordered a TiVo HD XL.
I think TiVo should send a nice thank you gift to Time Warner and Cisco/Scientific Atlanta for providing such a crappy DVR. The bad experience helped turn a potential lost customer with a dead TiVo into a high-end customer with the latest and greatest TiVo. Cisco’s bad DVR was good for TiVo.
Following up on the new ‘The Badoop Badoop Show‘ channel on YouTube, TiVo has also created a YouTube channel specifically for Australian TiVo users. (RSS feed.) Currently the channel has one video, a ‘Welcome to TiVo’ for Australian users. As well as the US ‘YouTube on TiVo’ video, which has a ‘Coming soon to Australia!’ note in the description.
So if you’re an Australian interested in TiVo, or anyone interested in TiVo’s Australian doings, you might be interested in this channel.
Spotted by Alex at TiVo Blog.