Stupid. Stupid. Tivo.
Tivo has point blank decided to alienate an entire market. I have half a mind to call over there and try to get ahold of someone in their marketing department. The story goes something like this. I realize this blog is lengthly, but its worth the read.
I don’t watch much TV. I work a lot. I’ve been holding off on getting Tivo for some time, regardless of a few of my good buddies ravings about it. My co-worker and great friend Nate Johnson makes an insurmountable claim that Tivo is “the greatest invention of all time“. Now, I would expect the company that invented greatest invention of all time to also care more about their customers than just about any other company. Tivo doesn’t. In fact, they have alienated the entire youth (gen y/x, digital native, millennial, etc) market.
Let me digress. The principle reason that I have waited to purchase Tivo was that the original Tivo required that you HAD TO HAVE a land phone line in order to do the initial setup and to receive the programming information on a daily basis. Now, they fixed this in version two (supposedly). Excitedly, I checked Tivo’s website to figure out if version 2 did actually eliminate the need for a land phone line. I read through the new documentation to find that although you can now connect the Tivo box via wireless or ethernet in order to receive current programming into, you STILL NEED a land line for the initial setup (preemptive note: no mention here of the time needed for setup). Mind blown, I decide to call Tivo to ask if this is true. Conversation:
DM: I’d love to purchase Tivo for my place, but was curious if you absolutely have to have a land phone line in order to setup the box initially?
Tivo: Yes, you have to connect to a land phone line in order to download the initial system setup information.
DM: So, although you can now receive all kinds of information via ethernet concerning programming, you can’t download the initial setup information from the very same servers without a landline.
Tivo: Yes.
DM: Do you guys know that you are alienating an entire market of 18-24 year old people that have no need or desire for a land phone line? Do you have any plans to fix this in the future?
Tivo: Not that I currently know of. We recommend taking the box to your neighbor or friend’s house and connecting to a phone line there in order to run the initial setup.
DM: You want me to take it to a buddy’s house, move their TV from the wall, setup the cables, run a phone cord into their living room, use their TV and phone line to setup the Tivo, then take it back to my house where it will have no problem using my ethernet plugin to function from there on out?
Tivo: Yes, the initial setup download will take around 8 hours so you might want to leave it there overnight (duly noted).
Tivo, has lost its proverbial mind. The youth market has no need/want/desire to connect themselves to a land line, let alone the consumer market in the aggregate (I’ll dig up the dwindling statistics if I have to). They don’t even remember what being tied to a wall was like. The fact that they require one in the first place is barrier enough to entry. That there is even a “recommendation” in place involving taking a consumer electronic of this size into someone else’s living room to set it up (for 8 hours), is mind blowing in itself. Was this decision made in a meeting at 4:30 on a friday afternoon?
By alienating your most important market and leaving a gap the size of texas in your market strategy you show a lack of compassion that has been known to destroy larger companies. Tivo: live up to your golden marketing reputation that has the aggregate loving you and madison avenue hating you, adapt your product to your customers, don’t make them adapt to you.
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