Satellite TV to Dominate PVR Market

[Steve Mehs]

The recent termination of the DirecTV/EchoStar merger will not impede satellite TV's efforts in the personal video recorder (PVR) business, says a new study from IMS Research.

Although a combined DISH/DirecTV entity could have helped accelerate the take-up of PVRs, both operators currently offer a wide selection of personal recorders and have aggressive plans to continue PVR efforts in their battle with cable, the research firm said. IMS Research forecasted that the integrated satellite PVR segment will continue to dominate the market through 2007, with approximately 4.5 million units shipped for that year, compared to 2.7 million integrated cable PVRs.

The United States accounts for the largest number of installed PVRs, with approximately 1.7 million shipping in 2002 alone, IMS Research said. Integrated satellite PVRs provided by DISH Network and DirecTV account for close to 66 percent of that number, the company said.

For more on the study, visit IMS Research at: www.imsresearch.com.

From SkyReport (http://www.skyreport.com/skyreport/dec2002/121202.shtm#three) (Used with Permission)

[gcutler]

It is a shame that the majority of people who will "See the light" of PVR will also have to "See the light" of DBS. But I guess there are enough #s so that if there were only one PVR per sub, eventually that would be a large enough # to maybe make others look?

[Ryan]

It's the integration. Sat subs are already used to a set top box of some sort, and adding PVR functions into that makes sense.

When cable starts adding PVR functions to their boxes en masse, you'll see good acceptance among cable subs, too.

However, I suspect that cable as an industry is greedily eyeing VOD, where they can charge for every instance of viewing a program, like the music industry wants, and DIVX (the DVD player, not the CODEC) already tried and failed. Cable may try to insert there own VOD systems rather than an already useable PVR system.

[Jacob S]

Seeing how many people have cable vs. satellite I think that this technology coming to cable will really increase the popularity of the product.

[DarrellP]

How did they get the numbers for Dish? I thought they were very tight lipped about the number of receivers they sell?

Since we're on numbers, does anyone know how many 6000's Dish sold?

[Jacob S]

There should be some information out there somewhere for how many of each receiver sold. One could even compare the number active and the number sold and see how many that are not in service in which would show the number that have been compromised. That is how they see how many may have been tampered with to unlock all channels.