TiVo continues “strategic review”
November 8, 2018
By Chris Forrester
TiVo has revealed Q3 numbers with the company saying total revenues – despite winning extra licence and royalty payments – were still significantly down.
The company’s revenues for Q3 were 17 per cent down at $164.7 million ($197.9m in the same period last year) and led to an operating loss up 395 per cent at $7.7 million ($1.5m). TiVo has 22 million subscribers around the world.
Raghu Rau, Interim President and CEO, said that the company’s current strategic review was continuing. “While the strategic review is still in process, it has informed us of our growth strategy. Combined with the TiVo Experience 4, we will bring together a broad portfolio of video content from a variety of sources into a single discovery experience with multiple advanced advertising possibilities. I am excited about the prospects of the business and the strategic initiatives we are undertaking, including moving to more transactional models, to drive long-term profitable growth.”
The company said it continues to explore all possible strategic alternatives to maximise value for its shareholders. “As mentioned on our prior call, we believe there is strategic value in each of our product and IP businesses. We remain in various active discussions, but due to the unique nature of our business, the process is taking longer than we hoped. It is our intention to complete the strategic review process by no later than our Q4 and year-end 2018 earnings call.”
Rau told analysts that last year the International Trade Commission ruled that Comcast infringed two of Rovi’s remote record patents. “Comcast chose to no longer make these popular remote recording capabilities available to their X1 subscribers rather than negotiate a market rate license agreement. As a result, we are back in the ITC for a second Comcast trial on three additional patents covering different popular features innovated by Rovi. A similar adverse judgment could leave Comcast with the choice of once again removing features its customers consider essential to their viewing experience or entering into a commercially reasonable license with us. In addition, we have a number of district court cases filed in New York, Massachusetts and California, including one related to the ’034 patent which we believe will become active next year. These district court cases are where Comcast would incur monetary damages if we prevail.”