Cable Cozies Up to TiVo & OTT

CHICAGO – INTX -- What a difference a few years makes. Former upstart TiVo was shunned by the cable industry for the better part of a decade, and Netflix has often ranked as enemy number one both for producing scads of Internet traffic, and for offering a competitive service to cable's video-on-demand (VoD).

Fast forward to today, however, and the cable industry has decided to mend fences all around.

Arris Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ARRS) announced Monday that it's teaming up with TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO) to bring the TiVo software platform and cloud-based services to Arris set-tops. The first combo product from the two companies is a six-tuner DOCSIS video gateway. The DCX3635 includes eight DOCSIS downstream channels, offers one terabyte of storage and supports two concurrent transcoding sessions of high-definition video.

"Arris is committed to offering service providers the best solutions for delivering the future of entertainment. Our partnership with TiVo is a great example of this," said Larry Robinson, president of customer premises equipment at Arris.

Meanwhile, Mediacom Communications Corp. announced that it's signed a deal to include access to Netflix on subscribers' TiVo set-tops. That news follows similar moves by Suddenlink Communications , RCN Corp. , Atlantic Broadband and Grande Communications , all of which also use the TiVo platform to deliver Netflix alongside their own video services. (See Netflix Cracks Top 10 MSO.)

And then there's Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC). The top-five US cable operator has been the most aggressive among its cable brethren about pursuing OTT deals. In addition to becoming the first service provider to distribute HBO Now, Cablevision has partnered with Hulu LLC and has hinted at porting its video service to a retail media streaming device. (See Cablevision Talks Up Internet in Q1 Earnings.)

Want to learn more about OTT video, multiscreen and other next-gen video technologies? They will be a few of the many topics covered at Light Reading's second Big Telecom Event on June 9-10 in Chicago, which will include a special Video Summit. Sign up today!

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) didn't change the name of The Cable Show to The Internet & Television Expo for nothing. In 2015, cable is all about new hardware platforms and OTT.

— Mari Silbey, Senor Editor, Cable/Video, Light Reading