M+E Daily

Of all the news to come out of the Nov. 28 licensing agreements between TiVo and Netflix, Jim Denney, VP of product management and strategy for TiVo, zeroed in on the one he thinks is the most important.

“The unprecedented part for us is the ability to offer Netflix to our wholesale multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs),” he told the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA). “We’ve done things along the same lines with other content partners, but this is taking what we’ve done on a smaller scale and applying it to Netflix.”

The product agreement has TiVo integrating Netflix into its set-top boxes, which are available to consumers via both pay TV providers and retail stores. The Netflix integration also includes unified search and a dedicated Netflix button on remote controls.

“The partnership between Netflix and TiVo dates back to our early days of streaming video,” said Bill Holmes, Netflix global head of business development, in a statement. “Building on this history, the agreements provide consumers freedom to watch their favorite TV shows and movies whenever and wherever, with an integrated experience across more devices.”
 
Separately, an intellectual property agreement gives Netflix access to TiVo’s patent portfolios — as well as a license to an Intellectual Ventures patent portfolio — for use in other OTT offerings.
 
“Our agreements with Netflix represent a major milestone for TiVo as we expand our offerings for the fast-growing OTT space, and further demonstrates our commitment to delivering innovative technologies to new and emerging markets,” said TiVo CEO Tom Carson, in a statement. “From products to patented technologies, TiVo is helping companies quickly adapt to a rapidly changing media industry and create beautiful user experiences that keep consumers connected to their favorite entertainment.”
 
Eric Wold, analyst with B. Riley & Co., noted that the licensing agreements between the two companies comes after the two ended years of litigation over patent disagreements in early 2015.

“We … view this as an opportunity to leverage this license agreement into additional agreements with other OTT players (i.e., Amazon or Apple). Therefore, we view this agreement as a net positive to the TiVo story longer-term with no required changes to either our estimates or valuation analysis,” he wrote in a note to investors.