US personal video recorder pioneer TiVo is revamping its pricing structure and scrapping its flat fee for lifetime service.
With unusual frankness, vp of strategic planning Todd Juenger avers: "We understand it's a great value, but in balancing trying to provide customers with great value and our own business interests, we think it was too far in favor of good value to make sense for us financially."
The $299 (€250; £172) flat fee is being replaced by commitments of one, two or three years, and there will no longer be separate prices for the PVR units and the service.
Under the new plan, the price for a TiVo box and a one-year service commitment is $19.95 (€16.71; £11.74) per month, or $224 prepaid. The monthly cost drops to $18.95 for two years ($369 prepaid) and to $16.95 for three years ($469 prepaid).
TiVo also revealed the fourth-quarter and full-year results for its fiscal year ended January 31.
It reported approximately 4.4 million total subscriptions, up 45% compared with the year-ago total. Full-year service and technology revenues were $170.9m, up 48% from $115.5m in the prior year.
TiVo's quarterly net loss narrowed 42% to $19.5m on revenue of nearly $47m. Significantly, the quarter was the first without revenue from DirecTV customers. The satellite operator is now promoting its own PVR.
Lacking DirecTV's input, TiVo picked up 356,000 subscriptions, down 49% from the same quarter last year.
Data sourced from USA Today Online; additional content by WARC staff
