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TiVo CEO Tom Rogers plans to step down in early 2016 as consumers’ television viewing patterns continue to morph.
Rogers, who has been CEO for 10 years, will relinquish his role as chief executive on January 31, the end of TiVo’s fiscal year, the San Jose, California-based company said in a statement Tuesday. Rogers will stay on with the company as non-executive chairman of the board.
“TiVo is a great company today — and I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of turning it around and building it from its DVR roots into the leader in providing next-generation TV in the United States and around the world,” Rogers said in a statement, adding that “the Board and I agreed that this was an opportune time to seamlessly transition to a new leadership team.”
TiVo said Rogers’ departure was “not related” to the company’s third-quarter financial results, which are scheduled to be announced November 24.
Founded in 1997, TiVo was a pioneer in digital video recording. It became a household name in the early 2000s by digitizing TV broadcasts that could then be stored on consumers’ hard drives. The company’s revenue comes from subscriptions sold with set-top boxes to consumers, as well as from licensing its technology to cable TV operators.
Rogers’ departure comes amid a shift in how people watch TV, as consumers are shedding their cable and satellite TV packages in lieu of video found online or through streaming-media boxes such as Roku and Apple TV. Roughly 24 percent of adults are no longer paying for TV, according to Forrester Research, with the trend most pronounced among people in their 20s and early 30s.
The company has attempted to keep pace by releasing new products such as the Roamio, a DVR for recording free over-the-air TV, and TiVo Online, a free service that lets people search for TV shows, sporting events and movies, including ones found on video on demand, streaming services and the Web. TiVo’s Bolt, a DVR released last month, allows users to stream and download recorded content to iOS and Android devices.
Despite those efforts, investors have been largely unimpressed. The stock languished in the low teens for much of the past five years. In the past 12 months, shares in the company have declined by more than a third, closing Tuesday at $8.70, down 8 cents.
