Word: tivo
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...founder of p.r. firm Blanc & Otus, takes on only companies that offer status. "We want to pitch the really hot companies to build our own brand value," she explains from her ancillary San Francisco office overlooking the Bay Bridge. "We look like we're cool because we have TiVo," she adds, referring to the new digital VCR company...
...telefuturist's grail: TV on demand. "It takes away the meaning of prime time," says Rob Enderle, an analyst at Giga Information Group. "The time a show is broadcast becomes meaningless." ReplayTV allows users to create "channels" based on search criteria, like home-improvement shows or Steve McQueen movies. TiVo lets you search by category and makes recommendations based on how you have rated other programs...
Analysts give TiVo, which plans to sell shares in an IPO, the early lead in the competition, noting that it has outstripped Replay in sales and investment partnerships. Last week, apparently to boost its dealmaking power with Hollywood, Replay named Kim LeMasters, former president of CBS Entertainment, as its chairman and CEO. "They have not brought me in for my ability to figure out what bugs are on the CPU," LeMasters says. "They brought me in for that portfolio I brought from Hollywood and for my different mind-set and my ability to examine the marketplace...
...Microsoft, not in the hardware but the software: the interface, program databases, associated content like TV "magazines" to guide users and advertising. (Neither system currently shows ads, but each has discussed future possibilities, including sponsorships.) "Our strategy is to embed it into other boxes," says TiVo CEO and cofounder Mike Ramsay. "We're going to build it into television sets and DVD players...It will eventually get embedded into every device." Ultimately, several companies will manufacture the boxes under license. Philips currently makes TiVo's box, and this month TiVo signed another deal with Sony; Replay has a similar agreement...
Replay's LeMasters will also be helpful in negotiating peace with the networks, which are unsure whether to love the new technology or hate it. A number of media companies and TV networks have invested in TiVo and/or Replay. But many of the same players (including Time Warner, parent company of TIME) also formed the Advanced Television Copyright Coalition, which has threatened to sue the companies in the future for nonpayment of copyright license fees. No one, of course, is making such noises anymore about VCRs, which also record copyrighted material...