“TiVo no longer manufactures hardware, and our remaining inventory is now depleted, though we will continue to offer support for the products going forward,” the company confirmed to Variety. “We are very proud of the TiVo DVR legacy, and the great experience TiVo has always provided lives on in our TiVo OS for Connected Televisions, which is available on televisions from Sharp in the US and multiple brands throughout Europe.”
The streaming era changed the game fast, leading to the slow deaths of TV’s old guard. DirecTV, for instance, isn’t even offering satellite TV in some markets anymore. Streamers that offer on-demand programming access and cable companies developing their own cloud-based DVRs made TiVo obsolete. Of course, there are drawbacks to these options, including the fact that paying for a streaming subscription, buying, or renting a program digitally doesn’t guarantee unlimited access to that program. For example, if you “buy” a movie on Amazon Prime Video, it could disappear from that cloud-based storage if Amazon as a platform loses the rights to the movie. (This wrinkle is the subject of a proposed class action lawsuit in California.)
Unlike those of us subject to the fickle whims of streaming platforms, TiVo owners will still have access to whatever’s on their hardware. As noted in the statement, the company will continue to provide support for anyone who invested in the lifetime service plans. But otherwise, the company is pivoting to software integrations with smart TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems.
