DirecTV Group Inc. on Wednesday said it plans to stop marketing digital video recorders from TiVo Inc. this year, as part of a broader plan to replace them with News Corp.-created technology, a top executive said on Wednesday.

Well, it is official. Sad, but this shouldn’t have a large impact on TiVo. While DTV has brought in the bulk of subscribers, TiVo sees very little revenue from DTV – and DTV has blocked TiVo’s value-add offerings like HMF, HME, TTG, etc. I think this is more a loss for DTV’s customers than for TiVo – though it sounds like they’ll still be able to request TiVo boxes.

It does sound like DTV hasn’t shut out TiVo completely, and they’re open to working with TiVo. But shipping the NDS box puts pressure on TiVo to do things ‘the DTV way’, giving DTV more negotiating clout.

Spotted in PVRWire