Tivo's New Bolt OTA is all about broadcast television – Variety

The pioneer DVR, Tivo, is not ready to sell the cord cutter market to Amazon and its new Fire TV Recast: the company releases this Friday a new version of its Bolt DVR, intended for people without television cable.

The new Tivo Bolt OTA is able to record up to four programs at the same time and stores up to 150 hours of recording on its internal hard drive. The device is only designed to record live TV channels (OTA) from networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, and will not work with cable subscriptions.

Like other models in the company's Bolt range, the Bolt OTA also provides access to streaming applications from companies such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. It comes with a voice-activated remote control and supports streaming on mobile devices.

"There are plenty of growth opportunities in the OTA market," said Tivo Vice President of Consumer Products and Services, Ted Malone, in an interview with Variety. He added that the recorded television broadcast was an excellent addition, even for consumers who receive most of their streaming service programming, thanks to the availability of local sports and HD image quality. uncompressed. "In some cases, OTA is really the best solution," he said.

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The utility of free live TV has not been lost to the rest of the industry. A number of companies have tried to reinvent the DVR for a new generation of streaming consumers. This includes startups like Tablo and Plex, as well as big players such as Dish and its AirTV branch, and more recently Amazon with its new Fire TV Recast DVR.

Asked about the competition, Malone argued that Tivo benefited from his experience. "We have been building OTA DVRs for 19 years," he said. "We have the DVR feature set."

At the same time, Malone had to admit that some of these newcomers were undermining Tivo. Amazon, for example, does not charge a service fee to consumers for its new DVR. "Will it be more expensive? Yes, we are a little more expensive, "said Malone.

The company is attempting to appeal to string cutters and other price-conscious consumers by reducing the monthly fee charged for using the TiVo Bolt OTA. Instead of the usual $ 14.99 service plan, Tivo only asks OTA customers for $ 6.99 per month. The device itself costs $ 249.99.

Malone admitted that some consumers may opt for cheaper options, but he also argued that his company was targeting subsets of wire cutters that were underserved by other solutions. This included people who canceled the cable but felt they were missing something, as well as consumers still attached to their pay-TV subscription because they were used to their DVR cable. "Some people really like this pay-TV experience," he said.