AOL Is Planning a Fast-Forward Answer to TiVo

[John Corn]

Personal video recorders like TiVo mock everything a television network is about. The devices let viewers thumb their noses at program schedules and, even worse, fast-forward past commercials. To many at the networks and studios, it is a cruel joke that could drive them out of business.

AOL Time Warner, however, is trying to beat TiVo Inc. at its own game.

A secretive team of AOL Time Warner executives has begun talking with other major cable operators and media companies about speeding up and co-opting the potential revolution that TiVo kicked off. The company's system, called Mystro TV, is AOL Time Warner's gambit in an imminent battle over the future of the television business. Satellite services, cable systems and television manufacturers are all racing to promote their versions of the TiVo-like technologies that threaten to wreak havoc on networks and studios, and AOL Time Warner wants to put its own stamp on the evolution of the medium.

Full Story (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/10/technology/10AOL.html?position=top&pagewanted=print&position=top)

[Bogy]

This is a secret? To who? Tivo? Other service providers? Dish and DirecTV? The article seems to be saying that the DBS providers hope to provide such service in the near future. News services dealing with electronics, cable providers, etc., have been full of all the various projects in process for some time now. This is just another example of the print media "uncovering" something that a lot of people have been very aware of for some time. Just not the people with basic cable. :D

[raj2001]

Personal video recorders like TiVo mock everything a television network is about. The devices let viewers thumb their noses at program schedules and, even worse, fast-forward past commercials. To many at the networks and studios, it is a cruel joke that could drive them out of business.

Drive them out of business? Thanks to TiVo I am watching more TV than ever before. And yes, I skip commercials, but when an interesting commercial comes on, I sometimes watch it. And I don't think the networks would lose any more ad revenue if I skipped over the commercials for feminine hygiene products.

Sometimes I need to work late, sometimes I'm stuck downtown, and sometimes I like to spend a quiet TV-free evening with my SO. TiVo makes sure that when I do those things that I can still watch the networks' TV shows.