Exclusives

TiVo CFO: Company Sees Upside Opportunities from Data, Targeted Advertising

TiVo continues to see upside opportunities from the strength of its evolving business model, according to CFO Peter Halt.

For example, “our data business potentially offers tremendous upside,” he said Jan. 17 at the annual Needham Growth Conference in New York, noting that’s “still a nascent” part of its business. There’s “tremendous opportunity for us to be providing a syndication of data, to be providing pure data and to be providing analysis of data,” he said. There’s also opportunity for TiVo when it comes to the “growing world around targeted advertising,” he said.

“The key for us is to get the messaging out to potential new investors about really the opportunity around the business as opposed to the concerns right now that exist” about issues including what over-the-top (OTT) services or the ongoing litigation with Comcast means to TiVo, he told the conference.

By the latter, he was referring to TiVo announcing Jan. 11 that it filed new patent infringement lawsuits against Comcast in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

The latest lawsuits claimed Comcast’s X1 platform infringed on technology invented and patented by Rovi, including pausing and resuming shows on different devices, restarting live programming in progress, advanced DVR recording features, and advanced search and voice functionality, TiVo said.

The patents involved in the new complaints represented a “very small component” of Rovi’s global patent portfolio, it said. Rovi bought TiVo for $1.1 billion in 2016 and changed its name to TiVo.

“Our commitment to our customers and stockholders compels us to protect these valuable inventions from unlicensed use,” Enrique Rodriguez, TiVo CEO and president, said in the Jan. 11 announcement, adding: “Hundreds of media and entertainment leaders around the world recognize the value of our innovations by selecting our products and services and licensing our intellectual property. Our goal is for Comcast to renew its long-standing license so it can continue providing its customers the many popular features Rovi invented.”

In addition to the filings, TiVo said it planned to file an additional legal action with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) regarding the same patents, and would be seeking an exclusion order preventing infringing X1 set-top boxes from continuing to be imported into the U.S.. In November, the ITC ruled that Comcast infringed two Rovi patents and issued an exclusion order, effectively barring the importation and sale of infringing X1 set-top boxes, TiVo said.

TiVo’s space is “all about the discovery of entertainment product,” when and where consumers want to watch that content, Halt said Jan. 17. For TiVo, “it really is about providing those solutions to other companies that deal with the consumer” or licensing companies its technology so they can design their own products, he said.

Most consumers are using more than one over-the-top (OTT) streaming service solution, he said. On the IP side, TiVo is “agnostic as to whether [consumers are] getting a skinny bundle or a full bundle” from a TV service provider, he said, adding: “We’re going to get paid the same on a per-household basis” for combined linear and OTT TV.

TiVo will, meanwhile, “continue to be in [the] consumer space” with TiVo-branded DVRs, he said, noting there are about 1 million homes with those set-top boxes. But he said: “That space is not where we’re looking really to see meaningful revenue contribution.” The bulk of its revenue contribution will instead come from the other parts of its business, he said.