Sticky, sticky TiVo

Thomas Hawk discusses an article by Jeff Macke on the TiVo/Comcast deal. The key point is that TiVo customers are exceedingly loyal, reducing costly churn:

TiVo users ... are sticky -- apparently very sticky. For the fiercest TiVo owners they treat their TiVo like a religion ...

Churn costs cable operators and satellite companies money. Basically it costs them about $800 to get you as a customer in the first place.

The churn rate for DirecTV/TiVo users is .2% per month. "That's one full percentage point lower than the levels of churn for Comcast DVR customers ..." Reducing churn [by] 1% ... would save about $60 million per month.

[Comcast] recognize[s] that their own ... engineers have come nowhere close to matching TiVo's offering.

TiVo has an excellent user interface and novel features like recommendations. These features make the experience on any other PVR seem hollow and pathetic, making switching costs higher and churn lower.