Media Updates

TiVo

Paul Attallah
October 15 2005

A digital video recorder (DVR) or personal video recorder (PVR) first released in 1997. It was designed using Linux by Jim Barton and Mike Ramsay. TiVo allows viewers who subscribe to its service to record television programs to a hard drive. The programs can be played back for later viewing, copied to videotape or a DVD. The technology also allows viewers to pause live TV, skip through commercials, and replay images instantly. Users navigate TiVo through a 14-day electronic program guide (EPG). A program is recorded simply by selecting it in the EPG. TiVo can be instructed to record all airings of a specific show, only new episodes, only episodes appearing at a certain time or channel, and so on. TiVo also records viewers’ preferences and can record programs without being specifically instructed to do so based on viewers’ preferences for a genre, an actor, a director, etc. TiVo, and DVRs generally, transfer the control of the flow of images from television networks to individual viewers. TiVo raises three problems related to advertising, copyright and privacy.
    First, advertisers and advertiser-supported networks have expressed concern that TiVo lets users skip commercials. They fear that if skipping commercials becomes an entrenched habit, it will threaten the very business model of advertiser-supported television. Some, such as Jamie Kellner, Chairman and CEO of the Turner Broadcasting division of AOL-TimeWarner, have gone so far as to claim that "[Skipping commercials is] theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial . . . you're actually stealing the programming." In response, TiVo now features ‘bannners’ or logos pertaining to a product whenever users skip through a commercial. It also aggregates viewer information (who watches what by age, sex, area code, etc.) which it resells to advertisers, thereby allowing them to target their messages more accurately. Viewers also have the option of choosing to watch special extended version of commercials. This audience is especially highly valued by advertisers because it is self-selected and already interested in the advertising. In some cases, TiVo has simply downloaded to user’s machines programs which advertisers wanted them to see.
    Second, the owners of television content (networks and production companies) fear that TiVo will facilitate the trading of their intellectual property amongst non-paying users. This fear is heightened with the advent of high-definition television for content owners fear the unauthorized digital duplication of extremely high quality content which suffers no image degradation. In response, television networks proposed introducing ‘broadcast flags,’ electronic codes that would prevent programs from being recorded. But in May 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the proposal which had won the support of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) because it violated the free speech rights of viewers and hardware manufactures. Those rights had previously been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1984 in the Sony Corp. vs. Universal City Studios (the ‘Betamax case’) that home videotaping was legal.
    Third, TiVo collects significant amounts of information on its users. For example, it is able to track their preferences and to propose unsolicited shows for recording. Additionally, TiVo is able to track every use of every special function by every one of its users. This allows it to collect information on which is the most recorded show of the week and even which is the most recorded event of the week. It was through this functionality that TiVo was able to report that Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at the 2004 Superbowl was the most recorded single event of that week. TiVo can also track which shows users intend to record, which shows they record and actually watch, which shows and actors they have ranked as their favourites, etc. Such information potentially gives those who own it extremely refined information on individual habits and preferences which may then be re-sold to marketing and advertising firms. TiVo claims, however, that it sells only aggregate (not individual) information and that it takes pains to ensure the anonymity of its data.

It has given rise to the verb “to tivo”.

Jim Barton. 2003. A Bit of TiVo History. ACM Queue vol. 1, no. 5, July/August. Available at: http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=53&page=4

Declan McCullagh. 2005. “Court yanks down FCC's broadcast flag,” in CNET News.com. Available at: http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-5697719.html

Chris Sprigman. 2002. “Are Personal Video Recorders, Such as ReplayTV and TiVo, Copyright-infringement devices?: Lawsuit Raising The Question May Force Sonicblue To Spy On PVR Users,” in Findlaw, 9 May. Available at: http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/commentary/20020509_sprigman.html