BBC rethinks TiVo deal after outcry over 'spam'

[John Corn]

Viewer anger has prompted the BBC to consider ending its two-year-old marketing deal with TiVo, the digital video recorder company, after customers found that a BBC sitcom was recorded on the machine without their consent.

Owners of the machines complained of "TV spam", likening the programme to unwanted e-mail, after TiVo set the 50,000 machines used in Britain to record Dossa and Joe as part of its tie-up with the BBC.

Now the BBC has said: "We have learnt a very big lesson." Sources say the corporation is reviewing the future of the service. The threat is a serious worry for TiVo, which is still a start-up company, and lost £17.7m in the past three months of trading.

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[Lurker]

Perhaps the BBC should have recorded a certain Monty Python sketch instead? ;)

[spanishannouncetable]

The BBC's mistake was in scheduling the show to interrupt viewers during prime time to record it. If the twits had set it up for a 4am recording (like TiVo does with Teleworld over here) the # of complaints would have been much, much smaller.

Serves the BBC right that viewers were PO'ed, but this was not TiVo's fault. I'd be willing to wager that TiVo tried to talk the pinheads at the network out of hijacking subscribers machines at 10pm (when the show aired) but their (BBC's) alleged minds were already made up.

[gcutler]

Too bad it wasn't done with more Tact. it was a great way to get extra income, but if they would have been more open and given a warning most of the people out there would not have had an issue with it. The sneakiness was the problem for many