Could Google acquire TiVo next?

Filed in archive Business Trends on December 10, 2006

How would all you tivo customers feel if Apple Computer acquired them? How about Google owning them?

There has long been speculation that a variety of companies might buy TiVo. I attribute that to the fact that TiVo is really more a technology than it is a stand-alone business; especially since cable providers learned how to make and distribute cheap DVR's as part of their service.

TechCrunch thinks that an Apple match would be ideal for both companies, as Apple tries to expand its media offerings. While iTunes sells a bunch of videos for Disney, the hardware maker has almost no leverage in the TV market. This is a sentiment that I tend to agree with.

But Google may be an even better match for TiVo. As Business 2.0 opines: since TiVo "is in the business of organizing the world's TV experience." It helps consumers get the content they want efficiently, while documenting how its subscribers use the service for advertisers. Sounds a lot like Google, right?

I don't post a little article in the Financial Times Thursday relating to Google and BSkyB because I thought it might bore you. Never-the-less, the bottom line in that story is that Google will target 30-second ads to the set top box on the BSkyB platform. So might this experience be helpful to Google in a TiVo network? You bet it would!

Everything a consumer does with their TiVo is being recorded: Shows watched, ads skipped, ads watched repeatedly. If TiVo's viewer data were leveraged correctly, it may be worth billions. But who would want it? A company involved in video, whose revenues are based on a targeting technology that delivers advertising.

As I am writing this, TiVo's market value is $474 million; Google could easily scoop up them up for $1 billion (still much less than what they paid for YouTube) and walk away with a bargain.