TiVo Community Forums Archives - Tivo gone before end of 2003?

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Tivo gone before end of 2003?
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Posted by: freddyf

THE real measure of this company's staying power is its cash flow from operations. But with less than $44 million of cash left on the balance sheet, and a burn rate that ran at $35 million in the nine months through October, the only way that cash is going to last more than a year is if overhead, including marketing, is slashed even more. Rather than a company maneuvering to grow, Tivo now seems to be struggling simply to survive.

http://www.nypost.com/business/70273.htm

Posted by: MighTiVo

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=105662

Posted by: CrispyCritter

freddyf,
You mentioned going through $35M during the first 9 months of 2002; don't you think it's a bit unfair not to mention that TiVo was cash-flow positive for the last 3 months of 2002? And is predicting to be cash-flow positive for the 2003 year? You were saying???

Posted by: Want1394

Maybe freddy would like to listen to last weeks conference call link to call

Posted by: Mars Rocket

These posts are hilarious. There's a been a doom & gloom post about cash flow problems pretty much every quarter for the past 3 years.

Maybe you should go back to your B-School profs and ask them to explain the difference between what you learn in school and the real world.

Posted by: old7

Ever notice most posters with Doom & Gloom predictions have fewer than 20 posts.

Old7

Posted by: milo99

freddy was quoting the article from the NY Post...which yes, the idiot who wrote that failed to mention that they were cash flow positive the last quarter. not to mention he had no clue about what tivo was all about... just more fodder

Posted by: dgh

quote:
Originally posted by old7
Ever notice most posters with Doom & Gloom predictions have fewer than 20 posts.

Speaking of patterns, another one is where a person decides that a TiVo just isn't right for him and then later reappears to give us the gloom and doom:

quote:
Originally posted by freddyf a week ago
I think I'll just forget about tivo.

I totally don't get the phone line requirement.

Thanks for the help.

Posted by: samo

quote:
the idiot who wrote that failed to mention that they were cash flow positive the last quarter.

This "idiot" did mention that in the article as well as bringing your attention to the fact that EBITDA means nothing for dot.com quality stocks. He didn't mentioned that, my you may want to know that net loss from operations this quarter was $11.5 million (total net loss was $32 million) with gross profit only $206,000 higher than a year ago. Subscription sales were about 15% higher at a cost of $5 million in rebates and subsidies vs no subsidies a year ago. As mentioned in article, most of the savings compare to the year ago came from sales and marketing (about $23 million). You may want to read TiVo 8-K instead of PR release if you want to know facts about financial conditions of the company.

Posted by: Chris Gerhard

My only concern is that the TiVo standalone may be a tough product to sell with the lifetime fee being $300. The hardware is priced right but the service fee is just too high now. I will be very surprised to see any growth for the standalone this year.

Chris

Posted by: Rob Helmerichs

:yawn:

:snore:

Posted by: CrispyCritter

quote:
Originally posted by samo
This "idiot" did mention that in the article as well as bringing your attention to the fact that EBITDA means nothing for dot.com quality stocks. He didn't mentioned that, my you may want to know that net loss from operations this quarter was $11.5 million (total net loss was $32 million) with gross profit only $206,000 higher than a year ago. Subscription sales were about 15% higher at a cost of $5 million in rebates and subsidies vs no subsidies a year ago. As mentioned in article, most of the savings compare to the year ago came from sales and marketing (about $23 million). You may want to read TiVo 8-K instead of PR release if you want to know facts about financial conditions of the company.

Samo, let's dissect your post one sentence at a time:

quote:
Originally posted by samo
This "idiot" did mention that in the article as well as bringing your attention to the fact that EBITDA means nothing for dot.com quality stocks.

Absolutely true that EBITDA has to be looked at very carefully to figure out whether it makes sense. Here, we've been talking about cash-flow. The main difference between the $11.5M operating loss and the $2M Adjusted EBITDA gain is how accounting for lifetime subs is done (over a four year period vs counting it immediately). In terms of cash-flow it makes sense to count lifetimes immediately, since they plan to continue having new lifetime subs.

quote:
He didn't mentioned that, my you may want to know that net loss from operations this quarter was $11.5 million (total net loss was $32 million) with gross profit only $206,000 higher than a year ago.

You don't mention that income for the quarter more than doubled; from $6.7M to $13.7M. But of that extra income, $5.2M was subtracted for rebates this year. Because of accounting regulations, rebates are directly subtracted from revenue, where as advertising (which is what TiVo did last year, instead) is subtracted later and doesn't affect gross profit. Comparing apples with apples, TiVo had a gross profit of $5.4M more than last year.

quote:
Subscription sales were about 15% higher at a cost of $5 million in rebates and subsidies vs no subsidies a year ago. As mentioned in article, most of the savings compare to the year ago came from sales and marketing (about $23 million).

So what you're saying here is that TiVo spent $5.2M on rebates this year instead of $23M on advertising last year, and got a 15% sales increase over last year? Granted it would be nice if it were more; but that bang for buck doesn't sound too bad.

quote:
You may want to read TiVo 8-K instead of PR release if you want to know facts about financial conditions of the company.

I did.

Posted by: phone1

quote:
Originally posted by Mars Rocket
These posts are hilarious. There's a been a doom & gloom post about cash flow problems pretty much every quarter for the past 3 years.

Well you can't ignore it. Like the guy who fell off the ten story building, after falling nine floors he said "Hey this isn't so bad after all." Cash flow's got to improve. (It is actually.) Don't get me wrong, I want TiVo to survive more than anybody, but profitability is a BIG part of that. The likelihood IMO is a takeover.

Posted by: c-surfer

Public companies can limp along for years before dying. When the cash gets tight and no new VC can be found, the CFO will bring in his trusty chainsaw. He'll probably start with the R&D staff. No Series 3, minimal software updates, and maybe bring in H-1Bs in combination with offshoring to trim costs. Also, Tivo is top-heavy with too many VPs. I count 15. Chop, chop, chop your way to shareholder value.

Posted by: Michael R

The thing that really matters for survival is CIF. Cash in Fist.

Posted by: dsmith48

Where's Freddy-Boy now?

Posted by: Want1394

Hmmmm, maybe freddy is a bit like my neighbors dog from down the block - "dump and run." :)

Posted by: sambeckett

if tivo goes under we will all get refunds. class action lawsuit, and I'll have my Credit card to refund the charges.

so i hope they go under. MS has nicer looking stuff anyway

we are all going to have dumb dvrs in a year :p

Posted by: raitchison

Not likely to get refunds, also not likely to collect on any judgement against a bankrupt company.

My main fear in the event that TiVo ceases to be is that they don't use the last update to unlock the security and turn the TiVo units into manual record PVRs. It would suck if they all turned into boat anchors after TiVo's demise.

Posted by: sambeckett

when cyber-rebates when bankrupt everyone got the merchandise they ordered for free. In most bankrupt cases any contracts that are broken are reversed.

Posted by: CrispyCritter

quote:
Originally posted by sambeckett
if tivo goes under we will all get refunds. class action lawsuit, and I'll have my Credit card to refund the charges.
so i hope they go under. MS has nicer looking stuff anyway
we are all going to have dumb dvrs in a year :p

And you want to be in the Beta program. Lots of luck!

Posted by: rseligman

quote:
Originally posted by freddyf
But with less than $44 million of cash left on the balance sheet, and a burn rate that ran at $35 million in the nine months through October, the only way that cash is going to last more than a year

This is an asinine statement. It assumes zero revenue for the next year! Not even profit... just revenue!

It's like saying if you have $12K in your bank account and you spend $1K/month, that you'll run out of money in one year. But oh yeah, duh, don't forget the fact that you actually bring in a salary each month to replenish some of that money, so you can actually last much longer!