• by Wayne Friedman , June 28, 2005

In a move designed to encouarge deals with cable operators and advertisers, TiVo Monday named veteran TV executive Tom Rogers as its new chairman.

Rogers, who has been vice chairman of TiVo since last October, and a board member since 1999, will take over on July 1, succeeding co-founder Mike Ramsey, the company announced yesterday.

The shift has been somewhat expected since Ramsey indicated his intentions several months ago to step away from the business he helped to start. Rogers was to take over temporarily as chairman while a search was conducted.

Some months back, Rogers made a crucial deal with large cable operator Comcast Corp., in which the MSO would use TiVo in its fast-growing digital set-top box business.

At the time, analysts said they expected that other cable operators would follow the lead of Comcast, the largest cable operator in the United States. At yesterday's press conference, Rogers said the company is indeed in talks with a number of cable operators.

But TiVo, with three million current customers, still faces some hefty challenges, said industry observers. "The question for Rogers still is, 'How do you fight the generic DVRs?'" said Dennis McAlpine, managing director of McAlpine Associates.

Analysts say TiVo is hoping its name--ubiquitous with digital video recording--will help cable operators market their digital set-top boxes. For some time now, TiVo has been selling the value of its software, not its hardware--software that technology experts say is still among the best in the business.

If customers want to 'Tivo' TV shows, then the company is on the right track, say analysts. "Make it a verb instead of a noun," said McAlpine.

Long the lightning rod for advertisers because of its commercial-skipping technology, Rogers also said the company is working on better relationships and deals with advertisers. TiVo also is developing local cable advertising systems, including one being developed with Comcast.

Analysts view Ramsey as a pioneering technology executive--but not a seasoned TV marketing executive. Rogers had been instrumental in the growth of cable network CNBC, as the president of the NBC Cable group. He had less success as the chairman of magazine group Primedia, when a plan to develop magazine content for the Internet failed to attract a significant revenue-generating audience.

The perception of TiVo as an ongoing business has been in doubt ever since cable operators increasingly have been pushing their own generic DVR technology to be included in digital set-top boxes.

Another cloud on the horizon for TiVo came some months back when its biggest partner, satellite distributor DirecTV, said it would no longer sell TiVo in DirecTV/TiVo packaged deals to its customers. DirecTV, now owned by News Corp., is working on its own DVR technology.