TiVo Is Officially Bringing Pre-Roll Video Ads To Many Of Its DVRs Soon

Last week, a report drew attention to a recent post on the TiVo Community forum where a user complained about seeing an advertisement that would play before videos recorded on the customer's DVR. This appeared to be a limited test of pre-roll advertisements by TiVo, which has now confirmed that it plans to roll out these advertisements to all of its consumer DVR customers.

A pre-roll advertisement is essentially a commercial that plays before a video. As found by Zatz Not Funny last week, TiVo has introduced these pre-roll ads before recordings for some of its DVR customers, a move that has already elicited many complaints. Despite the uproar on its forum, TiVo has confirmed plans to make pre-roll ads a regular part of its DVR business.

In a statement to Light Reading, a TiVo spokesperson said, 'DVR advertising is going to be a permanent part of the service.' Existing TiVo DVR owners should expect to see the ads arrive on their own recordings within the next 90 days, according to the spokesperson.

The spokesperson says the ads will appear on 'all eligible retail devices,' which the report indicates will include DVR products running the TiVo Experience 4 software. If there's any silver lining to the less than stellar plan, TiVo also confirmed that users will be able to skip these pre-roll advertisements in the same way they can skip commercials in saved videos.

Late last week, TiVo CEO Dave Shull told CNN Business that the company plans to launch a $50 'dongle' in early 2020 that will run Android TV and provide access to a wide number of streaming services. The company is also planning to release a software product called TiVo Plus in October, though details about this service are still slim at this time.