What Ever Happened To TiVo Being A Hub For Content?

In December of 2005, TiVo announced it had partnered with Rocketboom so that TiVo users could watch Rocketboom on their DVRs and TiVo emphasized how this would be the first of many content deals to come. The industry praised this as a big deal for content owners who's content would now be able to cross over to set-top-boxes and the integration of online content to TV's.

But since this announcement, TiVo has made very few content deals of any significance. As of now, from what I can tell, they have fourteen content partners via TiVoCast. Aside from the New York Times, all of the other content deals are from small web only properties. Yes, they have the whole Amazon Unbox deal, but when was the last time you even heard anything about that?

You'd think at a time when TiVo's CEO is saying that "hopefully" they will pull in more subscribers and grow their business based on TiVo's unique kinds of features that help differentiate its DVR from the others on the market that they would had a lot more content deals in place.

So why hasn't TiVo done more content deals? Has anyone approached TiVo about a content deal and can comment on what it takes to become a content partner? Is it too expensive to get your content on TiVo's platform? I'm interested to hear from others who may know as to why TiVo seems to have so few content deals in place.

Comments

[Al]

I was a Tivo fan for years until they decided some time ago that their newest HD unit would not support Satellite sources. Wonder how much market share they lost with that decision. Since then, I've been with Dish Network and their HD DVR. It was a difficult choice because I really loved my tivo...just don't know what to do with the unit now...I think it was the series two unit...I see them on ebay for cheap all the time...
:(