Two Little Lovers Sitting in a Tree, TiVo and DirecTV Renew Their Vows

Stock Market News and Investment Information | Reuters.com News is out this morning that Satellite broadcaster DirecTV will extend their service and support agreement with TiVo for three years. TiVo shares are up on the news. Go team.

The death of the DirecTV deal of course has probably been the most over-reported news on TiVo over the course of the past few years. It seems every time some new analyst would comment on it again or some reporter would write about it that people would act like it was the same news all over again.

Really the DirecTV TiVo deal is not that big of a deal in my opinion. TiVo only gets a lousy buck a month for the DirecTV units but certainly today's news doesn't hurt.

At issue is the fact that DirecTV (at least initially it would appear) seemed to be more interested in building their own DVR through News Corp. controlled NDS Group.

Of course this agreement is really not as lovey dovey as you might think based on my overly sarcastic headline. For one, I still doubt you see DirecTV actually marketing or promoting the TiVo service. This deal is more about the fact that DirecTV will have a small muitiny on their hands if all of a sudden they drop TiVo support for all of their customers who have already purchased DirecTV TiVos -- especially before having an attractive viable alternative that would truly be a value proposition for the TiVo customer (and TiVo customers do love their TiVo).

Of course the cherry on top of this all for DirecTV is that they won't be sued by DirecTV (like their rival EchoStar) for the next three years either. This is likely a good thing for both companies as patent lawsuits are expensive propositions for small company's like TiVo and DirecTV also doesn't need the threat of a big jury payout to TiVo hanging around their neck either.

All in all probably a win/win for both companies but not something that means anything more than business as usual really.