Your next car could have TiVo built-in

By Simon Cohen May 24, 2023 7:11AM

Powered by TiVo platform interface. — TiVo

TiVo, the company that defined modern TV watching in the era before on-demand streaming services, has announced a partnership with BMW that will see the automaker add TiVo’s video media platform to its vehicles. The addition of the Powered by TiVo platform will happen as an over-the-air update later in 2023 to BMW’s 5-Series vehicles and then slowly roll out to some of its other models.

The TiVo platform will include linear and on-demand streaming services with news, movies, and access to media libraries. The announcement comes just days after Google used its annual I/O event to debut its plans to add YouTube video streaming to Android Auto and Android Automotive car platforms. BMW also supports Android Auto in many of its vehicles but the company didn’t immediately describe how Android Auto and Powered by TiVo would coexist in the same interface.

“In-car entertainment becomes increasingly important for our customers,” said Ingo Lasslop, vice president of product management for digital products and services at BMW Group in a press release. “This collaboration with Xperi will allow us to deliver a world-class entertainment offering to our customers and transforms their time spent in the vehicle even more into a captivating and enjoyable experience.”

BMW isn’t the first car company to explore the use of streaming video in its vehicles. Teslas have been able to stream videos when parked since 2019. In 2022, Mercedes said it would begin integrating a variety of media options — including videos — via a partnership with Zync, and in March 2023, Porsche announced it will be leveraging the U.K. firm ScreenHits TV for a similar experience in its fleet of SUVs.

In 2022, TiVo, which is owned by Xperi, announced that it has created a smart TV operating system to compete with offerings from Roku, Google TV, and WebOS.

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