• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, October 7, 2005

Dear DirecTV: I hear you are abandoning TiVo and starting up your own digital video recorders and software. That's really nice--considering I just bought your cheapy TiVo digital video recorder last week, all touted in an ad campaign to sell the product. So, where does that leave me in future years? Just asking, TV Watch.

DirecTV, and other entertainment product companies, sometimes shift gears too quickly in selling technology. This rubs against what they really want--long-term customers. Perhaps this theme should be in advertising campaigns: "Buy this great product! It'll only last two or three years. But we'd really like to keep you around a lot longer."

DirecTV always hinted it was going in this direction after News Corp. bought the satellite distributor a few years back. News Corp. already had an interest in a European software DVR company, NDS.

This grim fact wasn't my only warning of things to come. Mark Cuban, the inspirational leader of high-definition TV and his HDNet programming network, spoke recently at Mediapost's Forecast, throwing out the first cautionary flag. Did you just buy a DVR? he asked the audience. Was it high-definition-ready? If not, throw it out, he cautioned.

Well, yes. Well, no. Well, you have a point.

Yes, one understands where Cuban is coming from with his 12 million or so HDNet subscribers that he would like to see at 112 million---all to sell big advertising time and make distribution deals.

With all the technologies coming on line--a sometimes confusing array for consumers to pick from--the one that'll definitely be part of a longer-term entertainment environment is high-definition, for TVs and recording equipment.

Buying any entertainment or communications technology products is always a risk for consumers when something better always seems to come along literally days later. Take Apple. The iPod Nano arrived relatively quickly after the iPod Shuffle was released.

But that doesn't bother Apple, as the iPod is a beloved product that has endeared itself to consumers. Will TV companies who sell set-top boxes, new TV sets, DVRs, and new broadband software, get that kind of affection?

My main in-home technology company now tells me so--with a new campaign for a new DVR. The tagline is:"Somebody up there loves you, DirecTV."

I hope so.