With waning market share and increasing competition from providers and newer streaming devices, TiVo has announced price decreases for its lineup of Series 4 DVRs and corresponding monthly service fees.
The Premier XL is now $50 cheaper at $249.99, and the Primer Elite is $100 cheaper than before, coming in now at $399.99. The entry-level TiVo Premier has been upgraded to record up to 75 hours of HD programming, now at $149.99. While TiVo certainly isn’t highlighting this, it’s worth noting that this price is $50 higher than it was last spring.
As before, all boxes require a one-year service agreement—a practice TiVo instituted a while back to subsidize their box prices. But since many people found the nearly $20 monthly fee unreasonable, consumers should be happy to learn that this monthly fee has now been reduced to $14.99, or $12.99/month for customers with multiple active units. This price brings TiVo’s service more in line with the cost of renting a DVR from your cable provider. TiVo still offers so-called lifetime service at $499.99 for the first device and $399.99 for each additional device. No-commitment pricing is also still available, but you have to dig pretty deep into the fine print to find it.
So if I had two Tivo’s I would pay $12.99/unit for a total of $25.98/month?
You pay the full rate for one box and the lower rate for every other box in the household.