TiVo Falls After-hours On Larger-than Expected Loss, Disappointing Outlook
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TiVo's headache continues and the stock is trading lower after hours. Get after-hour quotes for TiVo here.
Consumers simply have too many other choices, and TiVo's DVR services are available from too many competitors.
The company's fiscal fourth quarter loss was worse than expected — 30 cents, two cents more than analysts projected. And while revenue came in a hair above the average estimate — $41.4 million — down 9 percent from the year-ago quarter.
But the company's forecast for the current quarter and profit was worse than Wall Street expected, on both the top and bottom lines.
The company's been trying to build up its measurement service — promoting the fact that it knows exactly what ads people watch and looking to monetize that data. The company started allowing Turner Broadcasting to sell TiVo's interactive ad inventory. We can expect CEO Tom Rogers to stress these examples of TiVo's new direction on the earnings call, as a counter-point to the challenges its core business faces.
A couple factors are weighing on the company in the current quarter — TiVo says overall revenue will decline sequentially to the $36 million to $38 million range, whereas Wall Street was looking for pretty consistent quarter-over-quarter revenue. Despite fewer cancellations last quarter, TiVo simply has fewer subscribers this quarter — 1.296 million, down from 1.506 million a year ago. And it costs more to acquire new subscribers — $227 per customer from $160 million a year ago.
And then there's TiVo's litigation headache — it has pending litigation with EchoStar, DirecTV and Motorola. In the current quarter TiVo says legal expenses related to the EchoStar litigation will "significantly increase from its Q4 level of approximately $7.6 million." Not only does TiVo face these mounting legal costs, but if it loses the various suits, that means more cost to the company. We'll see how CEO Tom Rogers addresses these concerns on the conference call.
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