Best Buy and TiVo have worked out a nice deal. Best Buy is going to heavily push the DVR in all its stores nationwide and TiVo will produce a special Best Buy DVR and embed its DVR platform in a few HDTVs. This isn’t official just yet, but it seems like the agreement should help both companies.
TiVo is really a product that needs a salesmen. Consumers need to be shown what it can do and how it is better than the cable company’s DVR. As much as we all rag on Best Buy, the company does employ salesmen that generally know what they are doing. If Best Buy tells their staff to push TiVo, they’ll probably move a few more units.
The otherside of this agreement involves a Best Buy co-branded TiVo set-top box and places TiVo’s software onto Best Buy-branded HDTVs. This new TiVo will likely be built off of the existing TiVo platform but allows subs to purchase items from Best Buy using only the TiVo remote.
The HDTV brands of Insignia and Dynex probably need something to help them stand out against the big boys of Sony, Samsung and Panasonic. I don’t know about you, but an embedded TiVo awould sway my buying decision.
There are of course a lot of details left out of the pre-announcement. I kind of have a feeling that the Best Buy co-branded TiVo will be available without a monthly subscription. There needs to be a reason for consumers to buy the this model over a normal TiVo. Plus, I don’t know if even I would purchase an HDTV that came with a monthly cost.
I’m also excited to see where this multi-year agreement takes TiVo. Perhaps we’ll eventually see more HDTVs embedded with the TiVo software. Lets hope that this agreement provides TiVo with enough capital to finally update the almost decade-old GUI.