• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 16, 2005

It didn't take much to revive TiVo's stock; all it needed to do was make a deal with the biggest cable company in the country. This puts TiVo back in the game, but it still needs to score some runs. Comcast's decision to carry TiVo's service helped rocket the stock up 75 percent yesterday, and suddenly revived the ailing digital video recording service fortunes.

The good news is that TiVo can make similar deals with other cable networks - touting that if the biggest cable network gives you the thumbs up, smaller companies should follow.

End of story? Not quite.

TiVo is now one of a number of digital video services that Comcast offers. The good news is that TiVo has been recognized as having the best DVR software on the market, and as such, Comcast will put TiVo as a higher retail price point for consumers. If consumers understand this value, then TiVo is in the drivers seat. If not, then it's back to the drawing board.

Of course, there is still some competition from Motorola, which already makes set-top cable boxes for Comcast, and from a yet to be released service from Microsoft.

Perhaps business journalists need to ask Comcast some other key questions: What kind of marketing resources is the company going to throw TiVo's way? And what about for Motorola and Microsoft? If consumers can't distinguish between the services, TiVo will go the way of the Sony betacam.

Key in the deal is an interactive advertising technology that only works with the TiVo service. Consumers can punch a remote control button to get extra information or services from a specific TV advertiser when a TiVo customer is viewing a traditional commercial.

This will add to the cable company's growing ZIP code targeting technology for local cable advertisers from the Comcast Spotlight advertising sales division.

Point the spotlight on TiVo.