Com Hem Signs Exclusive Agreement With TiVo

• Com Hem and US Firm TiVo Partnering to Bring TiVo’s World Famous Television Solution to Sweden That Will Offer Consumers the Smartest, Most User-Friendly Personalized Television Entertainment Solution
• First Ever Deployment of TiVo via an IPTV Network That Will Deliver Best in Class Experience Through Virtually Any Type of Video Delivery and on Any Type of Device

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN and ALVISO, CA — Com Hem, a leading supplier of pay-television, high-speed broadband and fixed-telephony to 1.74 million connected households in Sweden and TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), a leader in the advanced television entertainment market, today announced a mutually exclusive distribution agreement that will enable Swedish consumers a never before seen pay TV experience. The offering will deliver seamless access to traditional television content, large video on demand (VOD) libraries, over the top (OTT) content and applications (apps) through a fully integrated viewing experience.

Com Hem and TiVo will also enable this vast world of content choice for consumption beyond the traditional set top box through TiVo’s tablet, smartphone, and browser-based experiences. With an investment of more than a half billion U.S. dollars in research and development over the last decade, TiVo has created the ultimate consumer television viewing experience and established the gold-standard for both user-friendliness and powerful functionality.

Tomas Franzén, CEO of Com Hem, stated, “We reviewed a number of alternatives to find the best way to offer our customers the absolute best television experience by providing a full suite of linear television services, VOD, and broadband delivered content (including OTT/pay services) to every room and device in and out of our customers’ homes. We found that TiVo, by way of its best-in-class user experience, its leading consumer feature set and rapid time to market was the most compelling answer. TiVo will be a significant part of our future plans which will redefine our subscriber proposition with features like TV Everywhere, remote recording, universal search, smart recommendations, and access to a wide range of third-party interactive applications.”

Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo, stated, “We are extremely excited to work with Com Hem to offer the TiVo experience to Com Hem’s approximately two million connected households, and we believe, similar to Virgin Media in the UK and ONO in Spain, this will make Com Hem even more formidable in the marketplace. Com Hem’s market leading broadband services are the perfect match for TiVo which prides itself on delivering the ultimate combination of traditional and next-generation television. Further, this deal is a significant step forward for TiVo as it will be the first time TiVo offers its service in conjunction with an IPTV network, highlighting our ability to offer the TiVo experience through virtually any type of video delivery and on any type of device.”

According to Franzén the launch of TiVo, in connection with its leading broadband speeds (up to 200 Mbit/s) and fixed telephony services, will continue to provide consumers with the best triple-play experience in Sweden. “We’re fortunate that our shareholders, BC Partners, are supportive of our vision and have approved substantial funding for the TiVo roll-out.”

Com Hem powered by TiVo will set the standard for smarter television viewing

With TiVo, Com Hem is launching not only a new way of television viewing, but a new way to view content, anytime, anywhere on any device. Some key features are:

• One-Stop Shop where consumers will effortlessly be able to navigate all digital entertainment content available with the market’s most compelling user interface across numerous devices;
• Universal Search will enable subscribers to search across all content including linear TV, VOD, PPV and OTT/play services, where search results are smartly sorted by popularity and relevance as opposed to alphabetically;
• The TiVo® service is so smart, that the system will learn what the subscriber likes to watch and automatically record Recommendations on the free space on the hard drive;
• TiVo Everywhere will provide a TiVo user experience that enables subscribers to access their content on mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) and through the Internet in Sweden regardless of whether content is sourced from the cloud or the set-top-box.

Com Hem’s TiVo solution is planned for market launch in spring 2013.