Rovi acquires TiVo in $1.1 billion deal; ‘TiVo’ will be the new company name

The rumors were true: Rovi today confirmed it intends to acquire DVR pioneer and set-top box maker TiVo in a $1.1 billion deal.

Founded initially as Macrovision in 1983, Rovi specializes in on-screen TV guide listings and provides the metadata that powers the media-search function on many platforms. This deal will create what Rovi calls a “$3 billion entertainment technology leader.” Though this is Rovi acquiring TiVo, the new company will actually take TiVo’s name once the transaction is complete, and will be led by existing Rovi CEO Tom Carson.

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“Rovi’s acquisition of TiVo, with its innovative products, talented team, and substantial intellectual property portfolio, strengthens Rovi’s position as a global leader in media discovery, metadata, analytics, and IP licensing,” said Carson, in a press release. “It’s an exciting time as the media and entertainment landscape undergoes a significant evolution. The combined capabilities of TiVo and Rovi place us in a tremendous position to extend services across platforms and to a customer base that includes traditional, over-the-top and emerging players across the globe. By working together, Rovi and TiVo will revolutionize how consumers experience media and entertainment and at the same time build value for our stockholders.”

Rovi and TiVo already serve many of the major cable and satellite TV operators around the world, and pooling their collective hardware, adtech, metadata, analytics, cloud services, patents, and general IP makes sense on many fronts. Together, the duo have portfolios of more than “6,000 issued patents and pending applications,” which will be the source of a huge revenue boon for the combined company. Indeed, both Rovi and TiVo have recently filed patent-infringement claims against other major media and tech companies, with TiVo recently accepting a $490 million settlement against Cisco, Motorola, and Time Warner Cable.

While the companies’ respective boards have, of course, approved the deal already, it’s still subject to approval by their shareholders, and it will also be scrutinized by the relevant anticompetition bodies. Rovi expects to close the deal in Q3 2016, at which time the company will add 10 million TiVo households to the existing 18 million homes that currently use Rovi guides globally.