BURLINGTON – After sinking considerable resources into building something of its own to connect TV to the web, Cogeco says in the end, it listened to its customers when deciding on the next generation of set top boxes.
“We surveyed our customers in Ontario and Quebec, and they told us they wanted this,’ said Louise St-Pierre, president and CEO, Cogeco Cable, at the company’s press launch of TiVo. “They wanted something that was easy, that connected them to their content, their show, their sport. They don’t care what channel it is on. They wanted that choice.”
Cogeco tried to give viewers an upgraded option that would better compete with Bell Fibe earlier this year, by building a new IPTV system with a third party vendor. However, the company announced in July the technology just wasn’t working and it had to abandon its IPTV project, with a $32 million write-down.
“Our sister company in the U.S., Atlantic Broadband, already had a process in place for TiVo, so we were able to re-use what they had learned and adapt it to the Canadian market,” said St. Pierre in an interview Thursday. “It allowed us to hit the market fast and to link to our customers.
“We were able to do this because of my colleagues (at Atlantic), and a partner who specializes in home entertainment.”
Atlantic Broadband has offered TiVo to subscribers since 2013, and TiVo with Netflix integration to customers earlier this year. Atlantic is one of 14 service providers in the U.S. who offer TiVo to subscribers.
“We can’t speak to the specifics (on take-up rate for Atlantic), but it’s safe to say they are very pleased and we are also very pleased, “ said Tom Elam, vice-president and general manager, service provider business at TiVo. “We look at two things, how are we helping our partners acquire new subscribers and how are we helping them satisfy their existing subscribers.
“By partnering with a company like Cogeco, we bring them an incredibly advanced product without requiring them to put in hundreds of millions of dollars of investment into a product of this calibre.”
TiVo’s innovative cloud based solutions enable viewers to consume content across all screens in and out-of-the home, providing an all-in-one approach for navigating the ‘content chaos’ by seamlessly combining live, recorded, on-demand and over-the-top television into one intuitive user interface. A Cogeco TV app, available on supported Apple devices, customers can search, browse and schedule recordings from anywhere. Additionally, users can download DVR recordings to their Apple mobile devices running the Cogeco TV app to watch from anywhere, without the need for a Wi-Fi access. An app for Android is expected to follow in April 2015.
“What we also love about our partner (TiVo), is that they will continue to enhance the product,” said St. Pierre, “so it will continue to get better.”
