The Australian Financial Review is reporting some new TiVo Australia news. Despite rumors that the Australian launch of TiVo was at risk, AFR is reporting that Seven Network still plans to launch TiVo service before their Olympics coverage begins in August. However, due to feedback from retailers such as Harvey Norman, they’ll be dropping the monthly subscription fee. Seven had planned to charge AUS$10-$12 per month, but now will be reportedly ‘slashing’ that – though the new fee hasn’t been announced. The unit itself is still expected to sell for around AUS$500.
Due to the reduction in the monthly fee, Seven has had to renegotiate their deal with TiVo. That renegotiation contributed to the slip in the release date. Oddly the article also says“It is also understood Seven will not charge TiVo buyers for software upgrades for the first three years.”, which is strange since TiVo has never changed for software updates and it’d be odd for Seven to charge for them while charging a monthly fee. The original plan of using Internet telephony company Engin to handle distribution of the TiVo appears to have been dropped.
Picked up from Gizmodo Australia.
