TiVo Charging for Skips?

2026-09-04T12:38:32-04:00

September 04, 2026
286 words
2 min

A dynamic, colorful digital illustration features a black remote control with numerous buttons, angled diagonally from the bottom left toward the top right. From the remotes top end, vibrant, tangled wires and geometric shapes in shades of purple, blue, and yellow burst outward, transforming into a large, three-dimensional golden dollar sign ($) that appears to be exploding or emerging with energy. The background is a mix of dark blues and blacks with abstract vertical bars and jagged lines in bright colors like pink, orange, and yellow, resembling financial charts or stock market graphs. The overall style is bold and graphic, with a sense of motion and energy connecting technology and financial growth.

TiVo Plans to End Free Automatic Commercial Skipping in November, Tests Paid Premium Replacement Service By Luke Bouma · via Cord Cutters News

Read original post →

TiVo, there is a name I haven't heard or thought about in a while. I used to love the hardware and platform. I thought I was the coolest tech-savvy person, and that TiVo was the way to watch TV. The tech was just so cool.

At one point, I had three of them. Most were the OTA version, though I had the cable version once with a CableCARD. That was an adventure to get working.

Over-the-air (OTA) TV has come a long way and now has so many channels. Yes, they are mainly old shows, but they are still worth watching, and it is all free. There are commercials, but I look at those as snack and bathroom breaks.

In reality, I do not watch nearly as much TV now as I used to. Most of what I do watch is through OTA, Plex, or streaming. OTA is mainly for news and the little, if any, live sports I watch. Most of the time, the TV is just on for background distraction.

So when I saw this article from Cord Cutters in my RSS feed, my first thought was that they must be desperate if they are trying to charge for their main feature, skipping ads. They do not even make hardware anymore. How and why are they still in business? I have not seen a TV with TiVo software in it.

It is one for the history books: a company that was much respected at one time, now realistically gone, or at least just a shell of its former self.