Ok, so I’m referencing an article that uses some of the fuzziest math and logic I’ve ever seen in a news article, but I think the underlying fact is true: the Tivo Series3 is not doing so well.

Tivo has seen a dip in stock price over the past 2 months, even though the Series3 is one of the most wanted electronic devices on the market. The reason? Try the $800 price tag for the best model. That’s well out of the range of the casual TV watcher. New subscriber rates seem to be holding steady, but the cost of acquiring those new subscribers has gone way up, although the article does not explain how.

So what is Tivo to do about this dilemna? Well, do what everyone else is doing. That’s right, they’re going to sell advertising! But I thought the point of buying a DVR was to be able to avoid seeing ads, right? Well, apparently not any more. Now it’s about services and quality recordings. They’ll find the shows you like, and make a recording that can be clearer than you’d get from a DVD for some broadcasts.

It seems like the target audience is beginning to slip from the general TV-viewing public to the TV aficianados, the people who live and die with each episode of CSI, and use that time when others sleep to view the great shows they missed the first time around but their Tivo recorded for them.

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