Rovi to sell Entertainment Store business
January 8, 2013
By Colin Mann
Rovi Corporation has revealed that it intends to pursue the sale of its Rovi Entertainment Store business as part of its ongoing strategic efforts to focus the Company on growth opportunities related to its core enabling technologies and services. The Company has retained GCA Savvian Advisors, LLC as its financial adviser in connection with the potential sale.
“The Rovi Entertainment Store has grown significantly since Rovi acquired it in February 2011, and we believe it will continue to grow and provide an excellent platform for on-demand media delivery as retailers and content owners move to distribute more content online,” said Tom Carson, President and Chief Executive of Rovi Corporation. “However, we are working to drive Rovi’s future growth and increase operational efficiencies around a strategic plan building on our core assets and IP, and to ensure the management team is fully focused on that effort. We are aligning primarily around delivering enabling solutions for our service provider customers and using those efforts to also generate growth with our Consumer Electronics and other customers. Consequently, we have decided to sell the Rovi Entertainment Store business.”
As a result of this decision, Rovi will reclassify the operating results of the Rovi Entertainment Store as discontinued operations, beginning with its fourth fiscal quarter and full fiscal year 2012 results.
Rovi acquired the Entertainment Store when it completed the purchase of Sonic Solutions in early 2011 for approximately $720 million. The service was launched as CinemaNow in 1999, and attracted such backers as Microsoft, Cisco and Lionsgate. It was acquired by Sonic Solution from private ownership in November 2008.
Rovi Entertainment Store also includes Rovi’s disc-to-digital technology, currently employed by US retailer Best Buy, which offers UltraViolet, the cloud-based entertainment ecosystem supported by most major studios.
Rovi Entertainment Store also powers Flixster, the Warner Bros.-owned movie streaming and discovery service, and KnowHow Movies, the digital entertainment service from Dixons Retail in the UK.