In the 2000s, TiVo reached heights that few companies were able to achieve. Like Google and Xerox, its name also became a verb. People had to “TiVo” the new episode. battlestar galactica Or Game 4 of the Red Sox vs. Cardinals, don’t “record” it. Although it didn’t invent the DVR, TiVo popularized it and many features we would eventually take for granted, like the ability to pause or rewind live TV, and watch one program while recording another.
Those features were incorporated into the now infamous US Patent 6,233,389 – Better known as the Time Warp Patent. TiVo spent much of the 2000s and early 2010s defending its intellectual property through a series of high-profile lawsuits, particularly against echostarThat particular saga lasted the better part of a decade, with TiVo originally filing a lawsuit in January 2004 and ultimately $500 million settlement Being honored in April 2011.
But TiVo spent most of its prime years embroiled in court battles key players In the television and digital video sector. Motorola, Time Warner Cable, AT&TDish Network, Cisco, and Verizon All found themselves the victims of a patent infringement lawsuit from TiVo. TiVo won in almost every one. The US Patent Office also agreed to re-examine the patent on two separate occasions confirmed his claims,
Had the company focused on revenue sources outside the courtroom, it could have been at the forefront of smart TV rollouts.
Licensing its technology became TiVo’s primary way of making money as it entered the 2010s. The problem was that by then the writing was on the wall. Netflix launched its streaming service in January 2007. Hulu entered beta later that year and launched publicly in March 2008. That year also saw the launch of Roku’s first devices and early models of modern smart TVs, such as the Samsung PAV Bordeaux TV 750.
DVRs became standard issue in most cable TV packages. Sure, TiVo’s interface was slicker, and it had advanced features, like scheduling recordings remotely through TiVo Central online or transferring them to a computer with TiVoToGo. But spending $200 or more on a separate DVR in 2008 (at least if you wanted an HD tuner), plus an additional subscription cost on top of your cable bill, was an increasingly tough sell when Time Warner would give you a DVR that was good enough.
Roku was providing an easy-to-use streaming set-top box at a very low price $49.99 Till 2011. Google reduced prices even further Chromecast in 2013Smart TV operating systems were becoming increasingly capable. TiVo was adding support for Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services, but it was constantly playing catch-up as it entered the new decade.
TiVo’s hardware was frozenIt was wasting time on features like capability Order Domino’s from your TVAnd its biggest money maker – a patent focused on manipulating broadcast television – was rapidly becoming obsolete as cord-cutting began to grow in popularity.
Traditional pay TV subscriptions peaked in the US in 2010, according to nScreenMedia 103 millionOr about 89 percent of homes. In 2025 this number has reduced to just 49.6 millionOr 37.6 percent of families. The most popular streaming services are now easily overtaking linear pay TV as they copy some of its steps by leaning into live content anchored by sports and other spectacles that no longer command attention with unskippable commercials. By the end of 2024, Netflix had 89.6 million subscribers and disney plus 56.8 million In America and Canada. (Companies only report subscriptions by region, not by country.) As companies like TiVo continued to fight Google And in Time Warner’s court, its customer base was drying up.
TiVo was finally Bought by RoviA company whose primary business is hoarding patents etc. license them for other companies or Sue companies So that they can be forced to license their technology. Sadly, this was to be the fate of TiVo in the long run. When it was bought by tech licensing firm Xperi in 2020, the press release announcing the merger didn’t tout best-in-class hardware or innovative set-top box software. Instead, it to brag About to be “one of the industry’s largest and most diverse intellectual property (IP) licensing platforms”.
After the merger with Xperi, TiVo will not launch any other set-top boxes. Its last model is tivo edgeWas released in 2019. And this month, the company confirmed that it had quietly sold the last of its stock on September 30 and that it would exiting the hardware business,
TiVo says it plans to focus on its new start smart tv os – A move that probably came 15 years too late. Perhaps if the company had focused on revenue sources outside the courtroom, it could have been at the forefront of smart TV rollouts. Perhaps it could have developed its own streaming-first device more than it was lazy (and late) Android TV reskinTiVo’s UI and iconic peanut remote were beloved. Its brand was famous in every household. But, rather than building a platform to power the next generation of television, it clearly seemed focused on extracting every dollar from companies headed toward obsolescence.
