TiVo is hoping to use Aereo to boost its new Roamio.
At Aereo’s bankruptcy auction last week, TiVo purchased trademarks, domain names and customer lists of the now-defunct company, which streamed broadcast TV over the Internet. The San Jose DVR maker plans to use Aereo’s assets to promote its latest product, a DVR that’s designed primarily to record over-the-air television, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers told Bloomberg Tuesday.
That device, dubbed the Roamio OTA, is targeted at cord cutters, consumers who don’t subscribe to pay television services. Aereo’s name and customers lists “will increase our ability to serve that segment,” Rogers said.
TiVo purchased Aereo’s assets for $1 million in an auction that was seen as disappointing for the bankrupt company and its creditors. Aereo filed for bankruptcy last fall following a Supreme Court ruling that its service violated the Copyright Act. The company used arrays of micro-antennas to tune and record broadcast television signals, which it then relayed to subscribers over the Internet. Broadcast companies successfully argued that Aereo’s service illicitly usurped their performance rights.
Although Aereo vowed to re-shape its service into one that complied with copyright laws, it was unable to do so.
Like Aereo, TiVo has been focusing on consumers who are interested in viewing and recording over-the-air television. The company began offering the Romio OTA last fall, although it initially limited distribution of the device to a select number of Best Buy stores. In January, TiVo made the DVR, which costs $50 but also requires a one-year, $15 a month subscription, more widely available.
Rogers comments followed the company’s earnings announcement on Tuesday. In its fiscal fourth quarter, TiVo earned $7 million, or 7 cents a share, on $114 million in sales. That was up from the same period a year earlier, when the company earned $710,000, or a penny a share, on $106.3 million in sales.
In recent trading on Wednesday, TiVo’s shares were up 27 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $11.52.
Photo of TiVo’s Roamio DVR courtesy of the company.
