TiVo Posts Profit, Fewer Subs

By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 3/9/2009

Alviso, Calif. — TiVo reported a profit, but lost 611,000 net subscribers for its fiscal year, ended Jan. 31.

TiVo’s total cumulative subscriptions for the fiscal year was 3.3 million, down from 3.94 million the previous year. For the fourth quarter, also ended on Jan. 31, the net loss of subscribers for the quarter was down 125,000 compared with the previous year’s loss of 122,000.

Net income for the year was $103.6 million compared with the prior year’s loss of $32 million. Excluding damages of $104.6 million that EchoStar paid to settle its infringement suit on its Time Warp patent, net income would have been $300,000 for the fiscal year.

TiVo reported net revenues for the fiscal year of $249.7 million, down from the previous year’s $272.7 million.

In the fourth quarter, net revenues were $59.2 million, down from $74.1 million in the prior year’s fourth quarter. The net loss for the quarter was $3.6 million, less than the $6.4 million loss in the prior year’s fourth quarter.

TiVo said it has entered an agreement with Alticast, a developer of Tru2way embedded software systems, to offer pay TV providers Tru2way cable functionality with TiVo DVR applications.

TiVo is also teaming up with SeaChange International to integrate cable video-on-demand services into next-generation HD DVR systems.