TiVo said Wednesday that it extended its DirecTV agreement and is developing an HD digital-video recorder product for the satellite-TV platform with 17.1 million subscribers.
The deal includes “development, marketing and distribution” of a new HD TiVo DVR for DirecTV’s HD-enabled subscribers that is expected to launch in the second half of 2009. The extension of the existing contract is for five additional years to a new expiration date of Feb. 15, 2015.
“Together we brought the TiVo experience to millions of DirecTV customers and now we look forward to launching a next-generation product that uses TiVo's latest features to truly showcase DirecTV's broad selection of high-definition programming -- all stitched together with the elegance of TiVo's renowned user experience," TiVo president and CEO Tom Rogers said in a statement.
The TiVo-DirecTV relationship dates back to 2000. The tie briefly soured in 2005 as DirecTV began to move to an in-house technical provider, but the TiVo relationship was revived in 2006.
TiVo, which reported a rare quarterly profit for the second quarter, is testing TiVo-branded DVRs with Comcast and Cox Communications.
