This recent deal to take advantage of emerging technology, rather than fight it, is a good move for both CBS (CBS) and TiVo. I'm talking about the agreement between Tivo and CBS to offer TiVo subscribers the opportunity to preview CBS' new comedy "The Class" beginning next week - a week before it premieres on network television.
"The Class" will be only the first of several new series that will be offered to be previewed before their debuts. The other series included in the deal will be "Jericho," "Smith" and "Shark."
"CBS' partnership with TiVo is a creative new way to use DVR technology to help drive television network viewing," says George Schweitzer, head of marketing for CBS. "Our goal is to introduce our fresh new comedy 'The Class' ... to a broad, diversified, receptive audience that has the ability to start trends and generate buzz, which is exactly what TiVo offers."
The value in the deal for TiVo is to make them different than the growing number of companies including DVRs in their services. While TiVo has a healthy share of the market, it's not dominating. So they need to make proactive deals like this to stay ahead of the crowd and not easily become another commodity as technology-based companies can so easily become.
Monty Brinton/CBS
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