AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS--(Marketwired - Mar 13, 2014) - TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), a global leader in the advanced television entertainment market, today announced that TiVo has surpassed 2.5 million subscribers across Europe as consumers in the UK, Spain and Sweden quickly embrace the TiVo experience offered by Virgin Media, ONO, and Com Hem, respectively. TiVo's pay-TV operator partners continue to aggressively deploy its next-generation hybrid TV software solutions and advanced television services to meet customer demand, making TiVo Europe's most broadly deployed advanced cable television solution. TiVo now covers nearly half of the subscribers at Virgin Media and a third of ONO subscribers.
"Consumers globally are increasingly demanding a superior TV viewing experience that enables them to access content across multiple screens and devices anytime and anywhere. Our growing roster of international pay-TV operator partners including Com Hem, Virgin Media and ONO recognized this trend early and share TiVo's vision for the future of TV consumption," said David Sandford, Vice President, General Manager, International at TiVo. "TiVo leads the market in multi-screen, TV Everywhere capabilities with deployments across multiple third party set-top boxes, iOS and Android operating systems and the Web, and Europe represents the largest share of TiVo deployments worldwide to date. Our success here puts a fine point on the overall success of TiVo's strategic transformation to a major international advanced television platform and services company. We are extremely pleased with the strong and sustained rate of adoption throughout Europe."
Pay-TV operators face an increasingly challenging and competitive landscape. Solving for this is not always easy and often is cost prohibitive for operators that don't have the financial means or the technological wherewithal to develop and deploy a flexible and scalable advanced TV offering. As such, operators around the world are increasingly turning to TiVo to deliver the most feature-rich and consumer friendly television experience while helping them avoid significant in-house development costs and the complexity of piecemeal alternatives.
Specifically, TiVo's work with Com Hem, Virgin Media and ONO has served to demonstrate how it can effectively develop and customize a hybrid television platform that is quick to market, economical, flexible, and build on innovative technology that seamlessly blends Internet and traditional television content through TiVo's award-winning user interface.
Adding to its suite of TV services, TiVo recently began showcasing its full hybrid QAM/IP and IPTV offering. This solution is designed to work within cable operators' existing architecture to implement its best-in-class advanced television solution as cable operators continue to transition to video delivery over IP. The solution can be migrated between either network while providing the same TiVo experience including integration of linear, On Demand, Catch Up and over the top services. The TiVo service provides a single, future-proof solution across all screens and network types. Com Hem's launch of TiVo in October 2013 was the first such full hybrid QAM/IP and IPTV deployment and served to demonstrate that cable operators have a clear migration path to IPTV utilizing TiVo's solutions.
Looking ahead, TiVo will aggressively continue moving its advanced television capabilities to the cloud, further enhancing the service it can deliver for operators. TiVo plans to deploy a full-featured network PVR solution with initial customers later this year. The TiVo network PVR will use TiVo's Emmy Award winning service delivered from the cloud and is a natural extension of the TiVo solution as operators consider a transition to IP delivered content and the utilization of low-cost IP clients and consumer provided devices (tablets, smartphones, etc.) with an eye toward enhancing the user experience inside and outside of the home. As previously announced, TiVo is also opening up APIs to the TiVo Cloud Service, enabling operators to innovate with a range of client applications and devices that will take advantage of the same integrated search, browse and discovery capabilities across any screen.
Sandford continued, "Our ability to innovate, collaborate and deliver high-quality and unique services has earned us tremendous recognition, and we look forward to continued success working in tandem with operators across the globe and delivering the products and services that customers demand."
Overview of TiVo's European Deployments
Com Hem
In Sweden, Com Hem launched their video offering with TiVo in October 2013, making their content lineup available simultaneously to television, mobile and the web with a single, consistent experience. Com Hem recently reported 38,000 TiVo subscribers, with the service already reaching 6% of their customers in just three months following launch. Andrew Barron, Executive Chairman of Com Hem recently said, "TiVo is important to Com Hem as it is the key to restoring growth in our DTV business. The combination of the powerful TiVo platform and our broad content offers provide the strongest TV product available in our market."
Virgin Media
In the U.K., two million Virgin Media TiVo customers have been connected since the service launched in December 2010. Commenting on the milestone, Scott Kewley, Virgin Media's director of digital entertainment, recently said, "Virgin Media TiVo started a revolution in the way people watch and discover great TV and it's clear from our growth that our customers agree. By offering different ways to watch, with subscription and pay-per-view options, all integrated into a straightforward, intuitive experience, there's an unrivaled world of great entertainment at our customers' fingertips."
Virgin Media began offering access to Netflix to its TiVo subscribers in September 2013. This is the first time an over the top offering such as Netflix has been accessible by subscribers through a Pay-TV platform.
ONO
ONO recently announced that the TiVo product has now reached more than 323,000 active users, a growth of 65,000 subscribers in just the last quarter. Rosalia Portela, CEO of ONO, recently said the company is positioning TiVo as the Pay-TV market benchmark and the record numbers shown in the last quarter show customers recognize that it's an easy to use, highly advanced service that is superior to traditional offerings.
Cable Congress 2014 runs March 12-14, 2014 in Amsterdam. TiVo is located in Room D402 of Elicium Hall, RAI, Amsterdam.
About TiVo Inc.
Founded in 1997, TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) developed the first commercially available digital video recorder (DVR). TiVo offers the TiVo service and TiVo DVRs directly to consumers online at www.TiVo.com and through third-party retailers. TiVo also distributes its technology and services through solutions tailored for cable, satellite and broadcasting companies. Since its founding, TiVo has evolved into the ultimate single solution media center by combining its patented DVR technologies and universal cable box capabilities with the ability to aggregate, search, and deliver millions of pieces of broadband, cable, and broadcast content directly to the television. An economical, one-stop-shop for in-home entertainment, TiVo's intuitive functionality and ease of use puts viewers in control by enabling them to effortlessly navigate the best digital entertainment content available through one box, with one remote, and one user interface, delivering the most dynamic user experience on the market today. TiVo also continues to weave itself into the fabric of the media industry by providing interactive advertising solutions and audience research and measurement ratings services to the television industry. More information at: www.TiVo.com. Find us Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/TiVo. Follow us on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/TiVo.
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