It seems Australia's whirlwind romance with TiVo is doomed, never to be consummated.

It looks like TiVo and Seven wasn't a match made in heaven.

TiVo declared its love for Australia last year with great fanfare, backed by the triumvirate of Seven, engin and Unwired. The Seven television network was to use engin, a consumer VoIP provider, as its TiVo distribution arm - unveiling the iconic Personal Video Recorder in Australia in time for this year's Beijing Olympics in August.

A broadband link is essential for Seven's TiVo plans, both in terms of viewers downloading content and as a back channel for monitoring what they've been watching. engin was set to start selling Naked DSL broadband connections this year, while Seven's stake in metro wireless broadband provider Unwired would provide the vital internet link to TiVos that can't be reached via copper or cable.

TiVo was also going to help Seven strike a blow against pay TV provider Foxtel and it's upcoming high-def iQ2 PVR. TiVo was expected to hit the Australian shelves around March, before Foxtel's IQ2, but since engin hit financial trouble Seven's TiVo plans seem to be on hold. Things weren't helped by the fact Nine's efforts to squash IceTV failed, leaving the door open for third party EPG providers to support TiVo's competitors. Now Australia's free-to-air networks are talking about backing the FreeView brand of PVRs, which doesn't bode well for TiVo.

engin's marketing manager Phil Dobbie and PR manager Will McIntyre had been talking up TiVo for months before they were both let go when engin sacked 29 employees in November to cut costs. Since then, getting information on TiVo out of Seven has been like squeezing blood from a stone and all the marketing momentum has been lost.

Seven’s director of corporate development, Simon Francis, told me more than a month ago that "we're not talking to anyone this week" about TiVo but he'd be able to talk in a few days. Last week he said TiVO was in "testing mode as we lead up to launch" but declined to go into further detail. Yesterday he didn't return my calls, nor did other people at Seven involved with TiVo.

There have been growing reports in the media that TiVo will never see the light of day in Australia. Harvey Norman has refused to stock TiVo and other communications players have shunned it, according to the Australian Financial Review. Seven was set to decide the future of TiVo this week in light of the FreeView plans, according to The Age. Amid all this negative publicity Seven has stayed quiet, doing little to reassure Australians that TiVo hasn't left them standing at the altar.

Oh TiVo, methinks I see thee, now thou art below, as one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.