Today, TiVo announced a multi-year strategic partnership with Comcast, the largest cable operator in the country with over 21 million subscribers. The market seems to like it as TiVo’s stock closed today up nearly 75%.

Hopefully this will turn around the negative media that’s been surrounding TiVo. TiVo has been hammered lately in the press. The pundits claim that TiVo can’t compete with generic DVRs, TiVo can’t survive without DirecTV, TiVo is toast without a cable partner, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, TiVo continues to add subscribers at a rapid clip, innovate with things like TiVoToGo and the release of a software development kit, beef up its patent portfolio, and provide an experience that most everybody loves and raves about.

What’s interesting is that 5-10 years ago, most of the media was proclaiming that Apple was finished, that they were going to go out of business. The prevailing wisdom was that Apple could never compete with the hoards of PC makers, it was a losing proposition trying to compete against the mighty Microsoft Windows monopoly, Apple’s marketshare is too small to be sustainable, blah, blah, blah. Fast forward a few years and where is Apple now? Oh, just one of the most profitable, well known, and imitated computer companies in the world. Hmmm… I wonder where all those pundits are now?

This is not to say that TiVo’s future success is assured. Far from it. TiVo must continue to innovate and work hard to stay ahead. But the doom and gloom portrayed by the media should be taken with a large grain of salt. After all, the media’s best interests are not always served by presenting the facts or by doing rational analysis. Their best interests are served by creating drama because for better or worse, that’s what sells.

Posted by Roger at 8:52 pm.