Within the 2000s, TiVo reached heights few corporations ever obtain. Like Google and Xerox, its identify turned a verb. Individuals needed to “TiVo” the brand new episode of Battlestar Galactica or recreation 4 of the Pink Sox vs. Cardinals, not “document” it. Whereas it didn’t invent the DVR, TiVo popularized it and lots of the options we’d finally take as a right, like the power to pause or rewind stay TV, and watch one program whereas recording one other.
These options have been lined within the now notorious US Patent 6,233,389 — higher often called the Time Warp patent. TiVo spent a superb chunk of the 2000s and early 2010s defending its mental property by means of a collection of high-profile lawsuits, most notably in opposition to EchoStar. That individual saga lasted for the higher a part of a decade, with TiVo initially submitting the swimsuit in January of 2004 and the ultimate $500 million settlement being awarded in April of 2011.
However TiVo spent a lot of its prime years locked in courtroom battles with main gamers within the tv and digital video house. Motorola, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Dish Community, Cisco, and Verizon all discovered themselves on the receiving finish of a patent infringement lawsuit from TiVo. TiVo got here out victorious in virtually each single one. The US Patent Workplace even agreed to reexamine the patent on two separate events and reaffirmed its claims.
If the corporate had been centered on income sources outdoors the courtroom, it might have been on the forefront of the sensible TV rollout.
Licensing its expertise turned the first method TiVo made cash because it entered the 2010s. The issue was, by then, the writing was on the wall. Netflix launched its streaming service in January 2007. Hulu entered beta later that 12 months and launched publicly in March of 2008. That 12 months additionally marked the launch of Roku’s first gadget and the earliest fashions of contemporary sensible TVs, just like the Samsung PAVV Bordeaux TV 750.
DVRs turned normal problem with most cable TV packages. Certain, TiVo’s interface was slicker, and it had superior options, resembling remotely scheduling recordings by way of TiVo Central On-line or transferring them to a pc with TiVoToGo. However spending $200 or extra on a separate DVR in 2008 (a minimum of when you needed HD tuners), plus an extra subscription price on high of your cable invoice, was an more and more exhausting promote when Time Warner would provide you with a DVR that was adequate.
Roku was providing simple-to-use streaming set-top containers at impulse buy costs — as little as $49.99 by 2011. Google pushed costs even decrease with the Chromecast in 2013. Sensible TV working techniques have been changing into more and more succesful. TiVo was including assist for Netflix, Hulu, and different streaming companies, nevertheless it appeared to continuously be taking part in catch-up because it entered the brand new decade.
TiVo’s {hardware} had stagnated. It was losing time on options like the power to order Domino’s out of your TV. And its greatest cash maker — a patent centered on manipulating broadcast tv — was more and more changing into out of date as cord-cutting started to develop in reputation.
Based on nScreenMedia conventional pay TV subscriptions peaked within the US in 2010 at round 103 million, or roughly 89 p.c of households. In 2025, that quantity is down to simply 49.6 million, or 37.6 p.c of households. The preferred streaming companies are actually simply outpacing linear pay TV as they copy a few of its strikes by leaning into stay content material anchored by sports activities and different spectacles that draw eyeballs to now-unskippable advertisements. On the finish of 2024, Netflix had 89.6 million subscribers and Disney Plus 56.8 million within the US and Canada. (The businesses report subscriptions by area solely, not nation.) As TiVo continued to battle corporations like Google and Time Warner in courtroom, its buyer base was drying up.
TiVo was finally bought by Rovi, an organization whose main enterprise is hoarding patents and both licensing them to different corporations or suing corporations as a way to drive them to license their expertise. This, sadly, was to be TiVo’s destiny going ahead. When it was bought by tech licensing agency Xperi in 2020, the press launch saying the merger didn’t tout best-in-class {hardware} or revolutionary set-top field software program. As a substitute, it bragged about having “one of many trade’s largest and most various mental property (IP) licensing platforms.”
After its merger with Xperi, TiVo wouldn’t launch one other set-top field. Its final mannequin, the TiVo Edge, was launched in 2019. And this month, the corporate confirmed it had quietly offered the final of its inventory on September thirtieth and could be exiting the {hardware} enterprise.
TiVo says it plans to concentrate on its fledgling sensible TV OS — a transfer that’s most likely 15 years too late. Maybe if the corporate had been centered on income sources outdoors the courtroom, it might have been on the forefront of the sensible TV rollout. Perhaps it might have developed its personal streaming-first gadget that was greater than a lazy (and late) reskin of Android TV. TiVo’s UI and iconic peanut distant have been beloved. Its model was a family identify. However, fairly than construct a platform to energy the following era of televisions, it appeared centered on milking each greenback out of corporations clearly heading in the direction of obsolescence.
