TiVo, BBC Hijack Video Recorders

English couch potatoes got a glimpse this month of a high-tech vision of television, and it was about as welcome as cold eel pie.

Eager to boost its new series “Dossa and Joe,” the BBC used technology from TiVo Inc. of San Jose to deliver the show to about 50,000 viewers with TiVo’s digital video recorders. The recorders, which store programs on a hard drive instead of tapes, can be set by TiVo to capture programs viewers don’t specifically request.

At 10 p.m. on May 22, TiVo recorders automatically tuned to BBC2 and recorded “Dossa and Joe.” A link to the program then popped up on the recorders’ main menu, titled “Must See from the BBC ‘Dossa and Joe.’”

This version of video on demand is something the BBC and TiVo have been working on for two years, hoping to foment “a revolution in personal television in the U.K.,” as the BBC put it. And it’s an approach TiVo hopes to replicate around the globe with other partners, including U.S. satellite-TV leader DirecTV.

TiVo owners in England responded quickly, posting more than 1,100 comments on the company’s Internet bulletin boards. Although some of the responses were positive, many viewers were angry that the BBC had commandeered their recorders in prime time to foist a sitcom on them that they hadn’t requested.

“I hope this isn’t going to be happening again,” wrote one. “Suggestions are one thing, forcing them on you is another.”

Others complained that a show with salty dialogue shouldn’t be delivered to homes with young children, particularly when their parents had no clue it was coming. Major British papers picked up on the controversy Thursday, airing the complaints prominently.

In defense of the BBC and TiVo, some viewers noted that no one was forced to watch “Dossa and Joe.” The program was stored on a portion of the hard drive reserved for promotions, so it didn’t eat into subscribers’ 40 hours of recording time.

And if subscribers had something else scheduled on their TiVos, “Dossa and Joe” would have passed by unrecorded.

Still, Brodie Keast, a senior vice president at TiVo, said, “It’s pretty clear we could have done a better job in the U.K.” In particular, he said, consumers needed more advance notice, the recording shouldn’t have happened in prime time and the program should have been “family friendly.”

Although TiVo has used the automatic recording feature to deliver short promotional fare to subscribers, “Dossa and Joe” was the first full-length program to be pushed to viewers.

In retrospect, Keast said, the BBC might have done better with a trailer for the program instead of the show itself.

“TiVo’s always been about both choice and control of the content you want,” Keast said, adding, “For some viewers in the U.K., this didn’t feel consistent with that philosophy.” The company remains confident that targeted promotions that are both relevant and entertaining will be effective.

This summer, TiVo, DirecTV and Starz Encore Group plan to store several movies each week automatically on certain subscribers’ recorders. But in this version of video on demand, only viewers who give their permission in advance will receive the movies.

“I don’t think the reaction [in England] is necessarily damning the idea of pushing content to the box,” said Brad Beale, a senior vice president at DirecTV. “We will take baby steps here ... [and] try to make it as valuable and non-intrusive as possible.”