TIVO ANNOUNCES NEW PRICING PLANS

Posted on Wednesday, March 8, 2006 by MegaZone

New Bundled Offering, Flexible Pricing and Service Commitments Will Simplify Offering for Consumers

These are the new pricing plans for units with *no* upfront costs. In other words, you get an 80-hour Series2 for free and pay for the service. I’ve been saying for a while that a cell phone pricing model would be a good thing, and I’m happy to see that they’re doing it:
* The price for a TiVo box and a one-year service commitment is $19.95 a month or $224 prepaid
* The price for a TiVo box and a two-year service commitment is $18.95 a month or $369 prepaid
* The price for a TiVo box and a three-year service commitment is $16.95 a month or $469 prepaid

These are for units purchased directly from TiVo, via www.tivo.com or 1-877-BUY-TIVO.

There will also be new pricing for units purchased at retail, again with 1-, 2-, and 3-year pre-paid options.

NOTE: Lifetime is going away next week! TiVo is eliminating the lifetime subscription option. I’ve speculated in the past that we’d see this happen, especially after the successful trials last year that lead into the new pricing, and while I’m sorry to see it happen, I’m not surprised. Lifetime has always been an extremely good deal. Since it is amortized over 4 years, but only costs about the same as 2 years of monthly, it is effectively a 50% discount for 4 years. *And* it precludes any further revenue for TiVo on that unit, ever. I’ve always gone with lifetime, on five units so far, three of which I’ve resold. So I’m sorry to see it go, but I understand the reasons. If you’ve debated going lifetime, do it now! The value of lifetime should go up when it is no longer available.

I missed the first half-hour of the con call since I was in a meeting, but I’ll listen to it again as soon as the recording is up online.

About MegaZone

MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
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  • cambler

    So what happens to those of us with three units, paying $12.95 a month for the first one, and $6.95 a month each for the other two?

    Do we stay the same? Or must we now pay more and commit to a time plan?

  • yakko7178

    crap…and I never have enough on hand to pay for lifetime, and was hoping to be in good enough shape by the end of the year to do it. Tivo should reward me for being a monthly customer since 2000.

  • megazone

    It may have been mentioned in the part of the call I missed, I’ll see later, but so far no indication that existing subscribers will have their plans changed, though you probably could if you wanted to. Since you already have a box and paid for it, it’d probably be one of the new plans for retail units, which I haven’t seen any numbers for yet.

  • buran

    Problem with lifetime is that I know I’m going to be getting a Series 3 for access to HD stuff, so it is unfortunately not worth it at this point — which may be exactly why they are doing that.

  • anonymous

    I was considering buying the lifetime subscription for one of my TiVos, and this change just hurried that a bit.

    $300 on the credit card isn’t so bad, I’ll be able to pay it off in 3 months.

    Since there hasn’t been any announcement of a pricing change for secondary TiVos, I think I’ll keep that one monthly.

  • megazone

    Yeah, I’d like to know what the new plans will be for units not purchased from TiVo.

  • anonymous

    Aha, I found some info on TiVoCommunity.com:

    Quoted from TiVoOpsMgr:
    “Existing subsciptions are not affected, so if you currently pay $6.95 a month, you will continue to pay that for that contract, until you cancel (or until you no longer have a qualifying unit on your account).

    Best regards,
    Stephen

    EDIT: Legal made me add the parenthetical. My bad. ”
    from http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=290514&page=2&pp=30

    Good stuff to know!

  • chlaal

    Okay, so for those of us who purchased a box recently under the rebate, and supposedly have until March 31st to activate the service (or lose the rebate), what happens?

    I bought the box plus 12-month subscription, and supposedly upon activation I would have the option of upgrading to lifetime for $145. If I don’t activate the service until “next week” (when lifetime goes away — and what exactly does “next week” mean anyway) then what happens? After the 12 months are up, I guess I’m covered by what the press release is calling “service-only options”? Is it still $12.95/month at that point? How much would it be for another year? etc.?

    if I activate the service tomorrow, will I still be able to upgrade to lifetime?

    very confused….

  • megazone

    From what I’ve picked up, ‘next week’ is next Wednesday, but don’t bet your life on it.

    You’ve already purchased the box and a 12-month subscription. If nothing else, you have that 12-months. After that you could continue to pay $12.95 month, since users under the existing pricing are not effected by the new announcements. Since the new pricing announced today includes a free box, it wouldn’t apply to anyone who already *has* a box. The not-yet-announced pricing plan changes for boxes purchased at retail would be more likely to apply to previously purchased boxes. But the word so far is that if you have a contract now, you can continue under those terms indefinitely.

    If you activate before the lifetime option is removed, you can definitely go lifetime instead. If you activate after that – I dunno. I’d say you’d be stuck having to go with just the one year that is paid for, but you could probably get customer service to bend and allow the lifetime. To be safe, if possible, do NOT wait – activate it now, while lifetime is definitely still offered.

    As I pick up more info, I’ll post it.

  • velvet_frogg

    This sucks. I’ve bought two TiVo’s in the past 5 years now I think it is. Lifetime service for both.. And I would have bought the lifetime service on any future ones. Now I’ll be hestiant in the future about buying more units.

  • etherial

    Lifetime Service was really an introductory offer. TiVo’s already losing money on many of the Lifetime Service contracts. It was there as a carrot to help give the company capital when it was brand new. It’s no longer brand new.