IceTV appoints administrators
Subscription EPG supplier IceTV facing financial trouble after supplier of its Skippa PVR ceases trading.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Independent EPG company IceTV has appointed an administrator this week as the company faces financial problems.
Fairfax reports strained relations with manufacturer of the Skippa PVR left the company with no choice but to call in administrators.
Skippa was promoted as the first Australian PVR to feature ad-skipping technology. It added to the company’s subscription service which allowed early PVRs to automatically record TV shows without manually having to adjust for programming changes.
​”The company providing the Skippa box ceased trading at midnight on September 30. It tried to put a tentative distribution arrangement in place which was unacceptable and impossible for IceTV to abide by,” co-founder and executive chairman Colin O’Brien says.
Skippa pre-orders were offered at the discounted price of $399, with a lifetime IceTV subscription. But in July, an extra $100 was announced to cover ad-skipping features or pay a $49 per year subscription.
Manufacturing delays and other issues saw delivery dates pushed back several times, with early review units finally available mid-August. But now recorders languish in a warehouse with an administrator advising empty-handed customers to register as creditors.
A month ago IceTV advised customers, “Mass production of Skippa remains on schedule. We have started to fulfill the earliest pre-orders. About half of the pre-ordered Skippa volume arrives in Sydney by air freight over the weekend, with the remainder not far behind. We have increased staff in our Sydney warehouse to speed up customer shipments from Monday on a ‘first-ordered, first-shipped’ basis.”
In a lengthy 2006 – 2009 legal battle IceTV famously battled Nine over copyright of EPG content, which it won, but impacted a planned $4 million public float.
The IceTV Electronic Program Guide will continue to function for at least the next week, while staff stay on for a solution.
Administrators are negotiating with hosting partner Amazon Web Services to keep the service online.
2 Responses
IceTV…is my go to TV guide…I sometimes use others…but it is the best for me…I actually came to it through TV Tonight…and my shortcut still has the little purple box/TV Guide…*G*
I hope it can be saved…
I had a bad feeling when I first saw that IceTV were getting into hardware. It seemed like an overly ambitious move for an excellent little company that had carved out a great and useful niche for itself doing something everyone who refused to bow down to the Freeview monopoly and it’s crippled hardware needed. Now it’s destroyed the company and all those of us who gladly paid our annual fee for their vital service are likely to lose out.