Rovi Sees First TotalGuide Agreement with CE Manufacturers in March
Rovi hopes to have the first CE manufacturers signed on for its TotalGuide electronic program guide by late March and deliver the source code for it in Q2, company officials said in a conference call.
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The goal is for the first TotalGuide-based products -- Blu-ray players, flat-panel TVs and others products -- to arrive in Q1 2011, slightly later than the original target of late this year (CED Oct 28 p1). TotalGuide, which will be at the heart of Rovi’s Connected Platform, will draw together technology the company acquired in buying All Media Guide, Gemstar TV Guide International, Muze and Mediabolic. The EPG will consist of broadcast, broadband and personal guides available for CE products or deployed in select components under professional services agreement.
TotalGuide also will bring together what had been separate EPGs aimed at individual markets including TV Guide on Screen (North America), G-Guide (Japan) and Guide Plus (Europe). The EPG will be a guide for Internet-based content including that from Blockbuster, Flickster, Rhapsody, Showtime, ZillionTV and others. The programming will be combined with Rovi’s All Media Guide and Muze databases that include 2.5 million TV programs, 400,000 movies, 1.8 million albums, 16 million tracks and 7.5 million books. Space within the guide also will be dedicated to in-grid advertising. Rovi expects to increase its advertising revenue to $20-$30 million this year from $10-$15 million in 2009, Chief Financial Officer James Budge said.
"It’s not a question of whether we'll be able to sign up customers” for TotalGuide, but rather if we're able to deal with all the customer demand,” said CEO Fred Amoroso, saying the new guide will lend itself to mobile applications
Meanwhile, Rovi is negotiating with partner Comcast on dissolving their six-year-old Guideworks venture, Amoroso said. Comcast formed Guideworks with Gemstar as a means for developing EPGs for cable operators. The companies introduced iGuide in 2005. Despite ending Guideworks, Rovi will retain a “good relationship” with Comcast and “work with them on a long term basis,” Amoroso said. In ending the venture, Rovi will lower its IPG development costs, the company said in its 10K filed Friday.
Comcast has been working with Cablevision, Charter Communications, Cox Communications and Time Warner on Enhanced Binary Interchange Format (EBIF)-equipped set-top boxes. EBIF content represents a collection of widgets and byte code specifications that define multimedia pages. The pages are similar to web pages, but are specialized for use in an enhanced or interactive TV system. At the same time, Rovi is moving forward with its Passport 2.0 guide that’s based on technology it acquired in buying Aptiv. Passport 2.0 had been designed for tru2way, deployment of which has been slowed by slack demand for the two-way cable technology. Passport 2.0 allows for remote recording and video-on-demand search and will be used in some cases to replace Cisco’s Sara IPG that’s in its Scientific-Atlanta cable set-top boxes. The Passport guide carries a 30 percent premium over Sara guides, Budge said. Rovi is in a field trial with a major cable operator in which Passport replaced the Sara guide in Cisco STBs, Amoroso said.
Meanwhile, Rovi is awaiting an arbitration panel’s decision following a hearing in December in DirecTV’s complaint against the company, Rovi said in the 10K. DirecTV and Thomson sued Rovi last year, seeking to be reimbursed for settlement costs in a nine-year-old infringement suit over satellite receiver patents. Rovi inherited the suits in buying Gemstar. DirecTV and Thomson settled the suit with SuperGuide in October 2008, ending a legal battle that began in 2000. Terms of the agreements weren’t released, but Thomson and DirecTV have claimed they signed a pact with Gemstar in the 1990s requiring they be indemnified for satellite-related IPG suits. Thomson sued Rovi in May 2008 in Indiana Superior Court and the case is scheduled for trial this year, Rovi said.
Rovi swung to a $2.6 million Q4 profit from a $211.2 million loss a year earlier as revenue jumped to $138 million from $118.1 million. Total expenses increased to $105.5 million from $98.1 million. Rovi’s service provider revenue, which consists of IPG sales to satellite and cable services and STB suppliers, rose to $62.4 million from $50.8 million. Revenue from CE manufacturers -- largely royalties on sales of products equipped with Rovi’s IPG -- jumped to $61.2 million from $53.4 million. The improved earnings follow Rovi’s sale of TV Games Network, TV Guide Network and TV Guide Online to Lionsgate Entertainment for $275 million. TV Guide Magazine was sold to investors.