SiliconBeat

Former Apple executive and venture capitalist Heidi Roizen has been elected to the board of directors at TiVo, where she will serve on its compensation committee after the company’s 2009 annual meeting. With her election, the board will now have 10 members.
Roizen left her post as a managing director of Mobius Venture Capital in late 2007 to devote herself to a song-writing project that resulted in a 10-song CD titled “Skinny Songs” designed to help women lose weight while grooving along to the music, according to Mercury News reporter Sue McAllister who interviewed Roizen in December 2007.

Roizen has also recently published a book Read the rest of this entry »

Tivo re-negotiated the lease for its 127,124-square-foot headquarters it leases in the Alviso neighborhood in San Jose at 2160 and 2190 Gold Street from the Bixby Technology Center, getting a 23 percent decrease in its rent beginning next February and extending the term for an additional seven years, according to a filing the company made Monday.

The rent roll-back begins Read the rest of this entry »

TiVo becomes the latest Silicon Valley company to resort to laying employees off as it “manages through the challenges presented by a difficult economic climate,” as well as what it, perhaps euphemistically refers to as “a rapidly evolving retail consumer market.”

Perhaps “devolving” would be the more appropriate verb choice. Or does TiVo know something about other changes in consumer habits, in addition to the evidently growing consumer fad of, well, consuming less.

TiVo didn’t put a number on how many jobs were to be eliminated. The company had 495 employees at the end of its last fiscal year last January. The company did say that it expects to take mostly cash charges of about $1 million “primarily for employee-related severance benefits and out-placement costs, according to this afternoon’s filing with the SEC this afternoon.

Tivo got its $104,600,472 payment from Echostar, now known as Dish Network, over violation of a patent held by TiVo involving digital video recorders, according to a filing it made today with the SEC. The judgement included $74 million in initial damages awarded by the United States District Court covering the period through Sept. 8, 2006, plus related interest through Wednesday, the day TiVo check arrived.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court refused to disturb Read the rest of this entry »

“Sit back. Relax. Imagine you are in front of your TV.”

Thus begins a letter to TiVo shareholders from the company’s chief executive, Tom Rogers, that was filed with the SEC Monday, that he may hope takes their minds off the 25 percent plunge in the company’s stock price so far this year. Read the rest of this entry »

TiVo filed the details of founder Michael Ramsay’s “Transition and Consulting Agreement” with the SEC Monday. It previously disclosed Sept. 5 that, in accepting his resignation from the board on Aug. 30, the company agreed to conditions that would result in “”approximately $3 million in non-cash stock-based compensation expense in connection with the agreement during our quarter ending October 31, 2007.”

The agreement, along with its two release-of-claims documents, total more than 11,000 words over 19 pages. In fact, part of it guarantees Ramsay up to $10,000 in reimbursement for attorney fees for negotiating and preparing it.

First things first: Ramsay, who is off to join New Enterprise Associates (a “leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm,” and TiVo shareholder), was to be paid $30,000 “as soon as practicable” after he resigned. It can be tough living between paychecks when you change a job.

Read the rest of this entry »

This slipped by us last week. But fortunately, Tivo (TIVO) filed an 8-K on Wednesday re-announcing that former CEO Michael Ramsay had left the board of directors on August 30 to become a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates. NEA already has one board member on Tivo’s board, and that apparently was enough.

Ramsay had stepped aside as CEO two years ago at the much-loved but perpetually financially shaky digital video recorder pioneer. But the details of his leaving are a bit, well, thin. In the filing, the company simply notes that it signed a “consulting and transition” agreement with Ramsay and that it expects to ”incur approximately $3 million in non-cash stock-based compensation expense in connection with the agreement.”

But the company didn’t disclose the terms of that agreement as far as we can tell. If someone sees it somewhere, please give us a roadmap.

During the past seven years, Ramsay has sold $8,814,799 worth of Tivo stock and still held 991,442 shares as of August 1.