[Satellite TODAY Insider 11-22-10] TiVo has signed a strategic alliance deal with Canal Digital, one of the Nordic region’s main pay-TV providers. The deal will see TiVo products introduced and distributed to Canal Digital’s satellite customers in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. Canal Digital has around one million DTH subscribers in the region.
    The TiVo product will be available through Canal Digital where it will serve as Canal Digital’s next generation platform, integrating linear satellite and terrestrial TV channels, Canal Digital’s Video On Demand service, and a variety of current and future ‘OTT’ services.
    “After considering many partners who could help us deliver this promise, we concluded that TiVo was head and shoulders above the rest. TiVo remains the gold standard for television user interface and offers an unmatched level of ongoing innovation for the consumer and the operator.” Christian Albech, CEO, Telenor Broadcast Holdings, Canal Digital’s parent company, said in a statement.
    The deal is a key one for TiVo, as it hopes to expand revenues internationally. The company has long worked with DirecTV in North America, but is now making a more concerted effort to improve its position in international markets. It has already started to make its presence felt in the European cable market with deals with leading U.K. cable operator, Virgin Media and Spanish cable operator, ONO over the last 12 months. Joshua Danovitz, vice president & general manager international, TiVo told Satellite News earlier this year that the company wanted to strike deals with satellite players as well as cable players. “Satellite partnerships are a high priority for us. A lot of what operators are doing now is combining broadband and linear content. Satellite is in a unique situation, as they do not have a built-in back channel. What TiVo brings is the ability for a pay-TV operator to deploy a set-top box, have all the features of TiVo, and if they offer broadband then combine it as a joint offering.  TiVo offers one integrated search across all content including VOD. We see this as critical to satellite, as they don’t have that backchannel,” he said.
    Danowitz says the dynamics of pay-TV are changing opening up new opportunities for a player like TiVO. “There is now an environment where pay-TV operators now have to compete on something more than price and number of channels. As a student of the international TV market, there are immense opportunities for us.  It is no longer pay-TV channels competing on number of channels, or even HD.  It is now broadcasters, retailers, telco, satellite, cable, all competing for that relationship in the consumer’s living room,” he said.
    For Canal Digital, the agreement with TiVo could boost its position in the Nordic region where the pay-TV markets are extremely competitive. Some of the main competition comes from Viasat Broadcasting, which also runs a DTH platform across the region. In the three months to the end of September, Canal Digital lost 14,000 subscribers compared to the end of the second quarter. While ARPUs have increased, growing the subscriber base across the region remains no easy task.

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