Tivo
president and CEO Tom Rogers says, “This
was a strong quarter and year for TiVo as
we significantly improved our financial profile
and made tremendous progress on the many elements
driving our business forward. Our progress
can be especially noted with our financial
results for the full year, as we neared breakeven
for the year on an Adjusted EBITDA
basis, exceeding our goals. These results
really underscore the success of our strategy
to effectively manage our TiVo-Owned business
in a way that does not cloud the enthusiasm
for the many long-term growth drivers we have
in place.
“Importantly,
just a few weeks ago, we had a very big
day at TiVo when the United States Court
of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unanimously
upheld the District Court’s ruling
that EchoStar had infringed on our Multimedia
Time Warp patent. The Appeals Court decision
was clear, unambiguous and unanimous that
EchoStar violated our patent.
"We
are very excited about this victory as it
more significantly solidifies the strength
of our intellectual property.”
“In
terms of our mass distribution strategy,
we continue to focus on increasing subscriptions
through significant partnerships with leading
MSOs in the US and internationally.
“In
addition, we are announcing today that the
TiVo service on Cox is currently in tech
trials and we will be launching in Cox’s
New England market. With both Comcast a
reality and Cox in trial, our mass distribution
strategy is making significant in-roads,
effectively unleashing the power of Tivo
beyond the
confines of a dedicated hardware consumer
electronic business.
“On
the international front, we began selling
Tivo DVRs at key retailers in Canada and
we continue to believe that there is a tremendous
growth opportunity to drive TiVo’s
differentiated offering internationally.
“On
the Tivo-Owned side of the business, we
are very focused on effectively managing
subscription acquisition costs, keeping
a sharp eye on how all initiatives related
to this part of the business impact profitability.
It is important to note that it
is difficult to compare this year’s
holiday results with those from fiscal 2007.
Compared to last year, we have pulled back
our marketing spend substantially, we have
significantly reduced our hardware subsidy,
and our main offering is now our $299 TiVo
HD box versus the free standard definition
offer that was our focus during last year’s
holiday season.
“We
plan to maintain our more limited spend
on marketing while we assess the speed with
which consumers recognize the value and
importance of broadband distribution of
digital video. Subscription acquisition
costs are the lowest they have been in almost
two years. Looking ahead, we believe that
our
feature set of delivering digital content
directly to the television is becoming rich
and deep enough that there are opportunities
to spark new growth in TiVo-Owned sales.
We are also in the process of relaunching
Tivo.com so that we can more effectively
market TiVo in the most efficient way
possible."
"We
plan to continue our focus on managing acquisition
costs and more efficient marketing spend,”
Rogers adds.
Tivo-Owned
subscription gross additions for the 4Q
were 109,000, compared to 163,000 gross
additions for the year-ago period. Overall,
TiVo-owned subscriptions increased slightly
from the prior quarter to 1.75 million.
As
expected, Tivo reported a net decline in
MSO/broadcaster subscriptions during the
period as DirecTV is no longer deploying
new TiVo boxes and other mass distribution
deals are still in early phases of deployment.
Cumulative total subscriptions as of 31
January 2008 were 3.95 million.
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