Cable (Finally) Getting on the DVR Bandwagon

Time Warner… where are you?

Company: Cox Communications announced this week the commercial deployment of an integrated DVR/STB, the SA Explorer 8000, in Gainesville, FL.

Key points: 50 hours of capacity two tuners, and Picture in Picture (PIP). Cox DVR service is available only to Cox Digital Cable customers for $9.95 per month, in addition to the customer’s digital cable service. Incidentally, this is the same price as the standard digital set-top box.

Take: Smart move from one. Our research has shown, time and time again, that DVR functionality is the number one or two service that consumers are most interested in from their cable operator.

Obstacles: DVR functionality has always been hard to market but revolutionary on TV watching behavior once adopted. Cox, and other operators that are deploying integrated DVR/STBs, still need to be mindful of how they are going to translate the value of this technology to the general TV population.

[Lydia Loizides]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.