TiVo Urges FCC to Reinstate CableCARD RulesTiVo Urges FCC to Reinstate CableCARD Rules

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- TiVo Inc., a leading provider of advanced television entertainment and a pioneer in digital video recording, is urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ensure that consumers can continue to access cable content on retail devices using CableCARDs until a successor solution is available.

TiVo has filed a petition asking the FCC to reinstate procedures aimed at guaranteeing that cable customers continue to have the ability to use competitive set top boxes with CableCARDs -- providing viewers with greater choice and flexibility. TiVo's submission comes in response to a recent court decision in a case brought by EchoStar challenging the applicability to satellite providers of FCC rules concerning the ability to record television programming. While TiVo strongly disagrees with the court's decision with respect to the satellite industry, this ruling unintentionally created uncertainty regarding cable operators' obligations to support consumer access to CableCARDs because certain technical rules concerning the implementation of CableCARDs were contained in the same FCC order that the court struck down despite the fact that operator support for retail devices using CableCARDs was not the subject of the court challenge.

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. cable customers currently rely on CableCARDs to gain access to TiVo and other recording and navigation devices with hundreds of thousands of more households expected to gain access in the near future.

The FCC's encoding and conditional access procedures are rules "that cable operators and consumer electronics manufacturers agreed to a decade ago and that cable operators, content providers, equipment manufacturers, and consumers have relied on for the past decade without controversy," TiVo Senior Vice President and General Counsel Matthew P. Zinn said in the petition.

TiVo Inc.