Dematerialization in the AV industry, from boxes to attention. A case study of a newcomer, Tivo

The audiovisual industry's evolution towards the digital era has enabled new actors to enter the market. Tivo Inc has positioned itself as a new comer on the home electronics market by offering both equipment - digital video recorders - and recording services. Although this offer is innovative and evolutive, Tivo's entrance into the AV industry has been highly constrained in that Tivo's interests often conflict with those of established actors. It is Tivo's penetration and dematerialization strategy that we shall analyse in this article; in particular we will examine the services and technologies Tivo has mobilized, the evolution of the valued intermediation functions and the various dimensions of the targeted users. Understanding how these different dimensions combine with one another helps to understand the different attention capturing mechanisms on which this strategic positioning is based.