Tivo CEO Tom Rogers says his company has spent too much time in the past sweating the details of how to improve digital video recording technology and not enough effort developing pricing plans for its service that made sense to consumers.
    No one disputes the loyalty of TiVo subscribers once they sign up. Heck, the company’s name has become a verb (”Honey, did you remember to TiVo ‘Desperate Housewives’?”)
    The problem, Rogers said, was converting that keen interest into paying subscribers. 
      A major stumbling block for Tivo is that consumers must first buy a separate set-top box for about $200 (with rebates, the price drops to as low a $50) and then pay a monthly fee of $13.
    Some Tivo customers don’t want to pay up front. Others don’t want to see payments dragged out in monthly bills.
    Satellite radio has a similar pricing model. 
    At the retail store, you can find satellite radio hardware for $50 or less and the monthly service for both XM Satellite and Sirius is $13. 
    “Satellite radio probably has the most analogous pricing model to TiVo,” Rogers told the Reuters Global Technology Media and Telecoms Summit in New York on Monday.
    But you don’t hear XM or Sirius complaining about their inability to attract subscribers because of the pricing model. One possible difference is that it’s easier to differentiate between satellite radio — which offers 125 to 150 channels, many of which are commercial free — from traditional radio.
    The difference between TiVo’s service and the generic DVR services offered by the cable companies are less dramatic. Both services allow you to store programs on a hard drive and pause and rewind live TV. TiVo’s selling point, however, is its interface, which many critics say is easier to use than generic digital video recorder rivals.
    Another key difference between satellite radio and TiVo is that XM and Sirius locked up deals with automakers. Chances are if you spend $15,000 to $30,000 for a car, you’ll hardly feel the additional expense of a satellite radio.
    If TiVo had such deals in place with cable operators or set-top box manufacturers, it would be in a very different position. But the only cable deal TiVo has is with Comcast.     To be sure, TiVo is working through the problem. And one possible solution is offering a variety of pricing plans that give consumers the option of paying for everything up front or paying only a monthly fee. Rogers said Tivo plans to be offering such plans in the near future.