Category: News Headline

MUMBAI: The creator of television services for digital video recorders, TiVo has unveiled TiVo KidZone. It is a new service enhancement that for the first time gives parents the ability to ensure that quality children’s programming is always on when their children turn on their television sets.

The launch of TiVo KidZone comes at a time when there is a remarkable surge in children’s daytime television viewing over the summer, which is also a time when TV viewing is even more unsupervised by parents and is a source of their growing concern, states an official release.

TiVo KidZone is based on TiVo’s easy-to-use interface and provides all parents the freedom and flexibility to easily find and select the television programming they deem most appropriate for their families while also making it simple to easily block any programs and channels they do not want their children to view. Announced in March 2006, TiVo KidZone allows subscribers to:

— Choose from entire menus of shows recommended by a variety of leading non-profit organizations focused on children and media including Common Sense Media, Parents’ Choice Foundation and the Parents Television Council and set automatic recordings based on those recommended menus — from their homes or using the internet.

— Easily add or subtract specific programs or channels to further customize what is available for children.

— Lock out all other live or recorded programming or channels that are not specified for TiVo KidZone from access by children, while making all channels and recordings available when a parent wants to watch television (after entering a four digit code, as with an ATM).

“TiVo KidZone answers the many concerns of parents revealed in this survey, by empowering them with a breakthrough new service and by also giving children a continuous array of engaging, high-quality programming to choose from whenever they turn on their television sets,” says TiVo president & CEO Tom Rogers. “TiVo KidZone is offering families a personalized TV area where parents’ own judgments and the recommendations of widely respected national family media review organizations such as Common Sense Media are easily and safely applied to deliver the best children’s television programming.”

“A number of parents of children under 18 say they are nervous about what their kids are watching, but 81 per cent in the survey say they do not utilize any blocking technology that prevents programming with a certain rating from coming into their homes. It is clear that parents need an easy to use service like TiVo KidZone to ensure that quality TV is always on at their house,” addsTiVo VP, sales & affiliate marketing, Joe Miller.

Parental concerns are highlighted in the release today of a new survey of 1,000 Americans, sponsored by TiVo and conducted with leading international research firm, Ipsos Research. The survey showed that 64 percent of parents of children under age 18 are concerned that their children will see television programming that does not reflect their family’s values, especially as many of the country’s children are beginning their summer vacation from school, adds the release.