I saw something in the paper Sunday that I have never seen before: a 40-hour TiVo from Best Buy for only $199.99![note the sarcastic tone] The $100 rebates that have been a staple for TiVo ever since we bought our first one two and a half years ago (and probably before that) have ended and it now looks like it is going to be some time before they offer any competitive deals like this again. Rumor has it that the company will achieve profitability by year's end if they cut the rest of their marketing budget & make due with the mass of new subscriptions they gained over the past eight months or so in their last huge sales push. It is likely that they will not offer another deal until 2006 when they release their new models (like a standalone HDTV TiVo & Comcast TiVo-fied DVRs).

Makes the recent deal that hit my Inbox look all the bigger - a 140 hour TiVo (the biggest they sell) with one year's subscription for $155! I racked my brain trying to figure out how I could justify adding a third TiVo to the house because of this deal - but I couldn't. Hopefully by the time we need to replace our 2 1/2 year old model comes along there will be another deal on the table. Until then, we'll just have to make do with what we have.