TiVo Case Analysis
Since day one TiVo has been the leader in the DVR (digital video recorder) industry with their first mover advantage, allowing their customers to record and play back their favorite television programs using their recorder along with a subscription service. Like any successful firm, TiVo has had its share of highs and lows. In 2007, with their CEO Tom Rogers, TiVo had found itself recovering from an all time low in 2005, where the company suffered from mass losses, low stock prices, and the end of an important partnership with DirecTV.
TiVo was now headed down the right path, once again being first movers by differentiating their product and services around new “macro trends” into a viewing and advertising solution
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TiVo needs to also concentrate heavily on their Audience Research and Measurement (ARM) unit, where they collect large amounts of data based on viewers’ ad-skipping behavior and ratings which are very valuable to advertisers and TV networks. Using their already gained scale through their mass distribution channels as a window for these two areas will allow TiVo to increase the low profits that are earned from distribution customers and remain steady while taking on all their other new business models.
TiVo’s constant challenge of increasing stand-alone customers can and should be tackled by investing more money in marketing. In 2006 the effort of $43 million on marketing to sell stand-alone units through their website more than doubled online sales. If one of TiVo’s executive’s suggestion of spending $100 million on marketing is implemented, TiVo could see similar results in the near future.
TiVo has remained an industry leader and been able get back up on their feet even after tough times in 2005 because of their great core competencies. Rogers had a vision to differentiate TiVo’s product and services to something far more than just your average DVR; he understood that TiVo needed to come up with a strategic environment. TiVo had already been number one and had the most brand recognition and customer loyalty in the industry, but Rogers changed TiVo’s internal strengths to coincide with its always changing external environment. As
On the horizon, Blockbusters number of competitors should steadily increase from new emerging technologies. If Blockbuster extends into the realm of VOD, Legal Movie Downloads, or Digital Video Recorders (DVR), it must realize there are existing and powerful players in these markets already. This new technology is shaping the market for many deals or partnerships. They will face fierce competition, but in the future, Blockbuster must not find it self on the outside looking in.
Blockbuster implemented a new strategy for customers to access their rentals in “five channels of distribution: in-store, by mail, through vending machines and kiosks, online, and at home (direct to the TV)” (DATAMONITOR, 2009). However, this strategy was a reactive approach to the problem produced ten years behind schedule. Wooldridge et al., (2007) stated that Blockbuster should select and adapt their strategy to respond to the fast changing market and maintain a competitive position. This was an obvious failure for Blockbuster. The changes in the market produced a decline in profit at a faster pace than the strategies that Blockbuster implemented to combat these losses.
Blockbuster was “the largest movie rental chain” in the Movies industry around the world (Biesada a). According to Rourke, Rothburd and Stansell (2006), Blockbuster mainly focused on “providing in-home rental, retail movie, and game entertainment”. It created 9,100 video stores and provided services to almost three million of customers in America and 24 other countries (p. 74). In 2010, the company filed for bankruptcy since it failed to adapt new technology in their strategies, and “was sold to satellite TV service provider DISH Network in 2011” (Biesada b).
YouTube’s broadened scope presents some corporate use for those businesses with video-worthy content and the desire to share
Hulu is a first mover in this space and is currently enjoying the first mover advantage. However with the ubiquity of internet technology accompanied by lower costs and the commoditization of the technology, the barrier to entry will be reduced and more players will be attracted to the profitable online video business, eating into Hulu’s profitability and success. Also, the increase in IT investments in the internet age causes “a Winner-take-all dynamic and high turbulence, as each group of dominant innovators is threatened by succeeding waves of innovation” (McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2008) in Schumpeterian competition. This makes Hulu’s success vulnerable.
For the past ten years, Hulu has been among the most competitive online streaming services. Beginning as a joint venture created by 21st Century Fox and NBCUniversal to “distribute their television programming over the Internet,” (Harvard 2017) Hulu has expanded generously, offering the four largest broadcasting networks. In the wake of a new television era, Hulu has the potential to serve as a Multichannel Video Programming Distributor (MVPD). The following write-up includes an analysis of Hulu’s current market standings, including an investigation of growth statistics as well as the company’s overall marketing situation.
Directly serving those distributors is a team of nearly 700 area sales managers, who need critical information, such as financial data, active service requests, and activation and cancellation rates, while in the field. (O'brien, Marakas, 2011)) Having an application that does all of these things at the same time is an ideal program for Direct TV.
Entering and transforming the video rental industry was a large undertaking for the start-up company. The first marketing objective the company undertook was the process of building a brand. Netflix’s identity was crucial to future growth and success. Without a strong brand, competitors with deep pockets could have easily duplicated the company’s business model. Secondly, leveraging technology was critical to establishing the business and infrastructure growth. The consumer base was the final objective Netflix sought to achieve. Retaining and growing subscribers were fundamental to revenue and marketing goals.
Growing competition as a challenge represents the various companies that are now entering the market of online media-streaming. Companies such as HBO, Amazon, Google, and Hulu Plus have all began to offer media-streaming on the same electronic devices as Netflix, Inc. Currently Netflix, Inc. remains in the lead amongst its competitors; however, there is no guarantee that this advancement is a permanent one. It is inevitable that emerging companies will come up with creative ideas to gain the competitive edge and receive more consumers. For example, Amazon.com has “amplified
Reuters, Dish and EchoStar Settle Patent Dispute With TiVo, May 2, 2011, The New York Times
As the world entered into the 21st Century, humanity has witnessed an ecology of innovation that ranges from artificial hearts and livers to iPods to Bluetooth technology to smartphones and many more ("21st Century Inventions That Made an Impact”). Each with its own unique attraction has become a catalyst in nature for how individuals think, act and live. Along with these state of the art developments, Netflix has become the cutting – edge service for internet streaming media. Deemed as “a worthless piece of crap” from Wall Street analysts, Netflix with tremendous leadership gained control of their industry and swiftly transformed the delivery of movie rentals ("How Netflix Beat Blockbuster: An Exemplar of Emerging Technologies”). Faced with impossible odds, we will discover how Netflix was able to survive, conquer and prosper as the emerging technology in their industry.
In the fall of 2000, Microsoft introduced UltimateTV. Similar to TiVo, Microsoft’s UltimateTV was a DVR add-on to its WebTV service which already offered email and web browsing, things which TiVo did not. UltimateTV also had other features such as recording two shows at once and 30-second skip. Microsoft’s UltimateTV did have some weaknesses, however. This included a lack of time in the DVR market and a relatively small group of current subscribers to their WebTV service. Thus, Microsoft needs to convince consumers not only that UltimateTV is superior to TiVo but that WebTV is a useful tool.
Netflix Inc. is in the entertainment market, which is a part of a larger video, film
What do we really mean by television? The way we watch television has drastically changed over the last fifteen years due to new technologies such as digital television and services providing on-demand access. These drastic changes have had a huge effect on viewers and have “allowed online streaming platforms to dominate and revolutionize the way the audience consumes” (Aliloupour) media, ultimately allowing the viewer to be in total control of how, when and where they want their content. The idea of only being able to watch television on a television set is now a thing of the past. Due to technology, the audience now has a vast variety of options on how they can access content. By using scholarly articles, research in new media and Internet sites I will be analyzing current television and where the future of television will be heading.
Long-time friends, Tom Herman and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, had a great business idea, with a large market, and little competition. They took something that nearly everyone goes through, and marketed it in a more efficient way. They wanted to make the DMV more efficient, specifically; they wanted to allow consumers to quickly and securely pay their traffic tickets online. This business plan parallels Netflix in many ways, as it took something that we were