Phrenzie.com

There’s been a little written about Blockbuster’s move to offer videos on TIVOs and sell TIVO DVRs at BBI’s retail outlets.  Here’s the press release.

So what.

TIVO is fighting a near death with On-Demand and the cable companies’ own versions of DVRs, not to mention the other DVRs available in stores.  So although TIVO is a household name, it’s also a generic name for DVRs,  like Kleenex is to tissue. 

For the year ended January 31, 2009, TIVO had a net subscriptions loss of 91,000 and it’s been losing subscribers for each of the last four quarters.  But it does appear to be getting better (net loss of 4,000 from 28,000 and 42,000 for the 4th, 3rd and 2nd quarter, respectively.

No wonder why TIVO’s stock hasn’t moved in YEARS.

So TIVO won’t provide Blockbuster with much of a bump.  

Don’t get me wrong…I think it’s a necessary move.  TIVO still serves over 3 million subscribers (as of January 31, 2009).  So even if one subscriber uses the Blockbuster/TIVO partnership, that’s potentially one more than Blockbuster had