If you’re gazing longingly at new streaming services but can’t actually afford all of them, TiVo says it can help you choose.
In recent years, the company has been trying to evolve beyond the DVR business by creating products that make it easier for consumers to navigate the increasingly fragmented TV landscape. Earlier this year, it launched the Tivo Stream 4K, a $50 Android TV dongle.
In a blog post, TiVo said that its goal is to help you answer questions like, “Do I need a live TV lineup? If so, what’s the optimal service and line-up for me? Which streaming services best fit my taste and consumption profile?” The TiVo Stream 4K was the first step in that strategy, and today’s launch of TiVo Match Scores is the second.
The idea is pretty simple: When you browse different streaming services in the My Services section of the TiVo Stream interface, you’ll start seeing personalized scores between 1 and 100. The higher the score, the more likely that the service is a good fit for you.
Image Credits: TiVo
Vice President of Product Chris Thun told me via email that with streaming services becoming increasingly protective of their viewership data, TiVo draws on a variety of data sources to calculate the scores for each viewer — the same data it uses to recommend movies and shows throughout the Tivo Stream experience.
“With TiVo Stream, we’re utilizing engagement-based personalization alongside the more traditional viewership data (in cases where views are made available to us) to tune our recommendations,” Thun said. “Ingredient signals driving engagement-based personalization include titles within TiVo Stream that you engage with, add to your watchlist, or make a partner app selection (strongly implying viewership).”
Thun said every streaming service that’s integrated with TiVo Stream will be scored. The company plans to roll out Match Scores over the next few days, with full deployment by the end of the week.
