TVSquad

After months of planning, the TiVo and the Seven Media Group are preparing to launch TiVo service in Australia. And in a completely unexpected turn of events, the companies have decided to eliminate the monthly subscription fee for TiVo service.

The service has been held up for a while due to program guide licensing issues in Australia. A personal video recorder isn't much good if you can't access TV listings for all the major networks. Now it looks like most of those wrinkles have been worked out, but TiVo faces competition from Foxtel, another PVR maker in Australia. In order to stay competitive, TiVo will be offering service free of charge.

In order to make up some of the lost subscription revenue, a TiVo box will cost Australian customers $500 AUD, which is about $482 US. That's cheaper than a US box with product lifetime service, but significantly more expensive than a standard TiVo HD unit with monthly service.

[via Zatz Not Funny]

It's been a while since TiVo offered new customers a product lifetime subscription. But if you're one of the lucky few who picked up a TiVo Series1 or Series2 box back in the day and paid a flat fee for service, you're in luck. And by luck, I mean if you're ready to shell out even more money to buy a new TiVo HD, you can transfer your product lifetime service for an extra $199.

Of course, if you aren't planning on watching any high definition TV for a while, you might as well keep the box you've got. But if you were going to pick up a $300 TiVo HD anyway, this is a pretty good deal. You'd wind up spending over $150 on a one year subscription for your new box, which makes an extra $199 look like a pretty good deal.

There's no indication TiVo plans to offer newer customers a lifetime service option. This offer is geared at getting older customers to upgrade their boxes.

[Thanks Mandabar!]

You're gonna have to, if you want to hear it. When Ricky and his comedian buddies Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington (aka "The Village Idiot") launched their hilarious podcast in December, they flew to the top of the iTunes Top 100 list. Their first twelve episodes were sponsored by the Guardian, and therefore free to all of us. This time, their "second season" is going to be through Audible and the monthly subscription will cost at least $7 for four half-hour shows. You'll still be able to get the podcast through iTunes, you'll just have to pay for it the same way you pay for other Audible content like NPR'S This American Life and Fresh Air. By the way, there's a preview of the new season over at Gervais' website.

Obviously, this is a very big deal. This is the first podcast in iTunes to charge a subscription. While other podcasts are sponsored or get donations from listeners, this one will be the first to answer the question that so many business people want to know: will people pay for podcasts?

So... will you pay for Ricky Gervais' podcast?

[Thanks for the tip, Doc!]

If you own a Tivo or DVR you can record all of your favorite shows, correct? Well, not if HBO has anything to say about it. The company wants to make it illegal for DVR owners to record episodes from its on-demand service and have petitioned the FCC to look into it. Apparently HBO doesn't want free copies of these shows floating around. However, shouldn't people be allowed to record them for private use? HBO isn't just setting its site on DVR users, the company doesn't want to see these shows recorded in any fashion whatsoever.