Rovi confirmed that it is winding down its Fan TV partnership with Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC).
In November of last year, Rovi purchased Fan TV (formerly known as Fanhattan), a privately funded company that had an arranged with TWC to provide set-tops that integrate cable with online video programming.
Rovi has yet to respond to FierceCable's inquiry for comment. But Fan TV founder Gilles BianRosa told Variety, "We'll be transitioning folks to our recently launched Android TV app over the next four weeks."
Variety said Rovi's San Mateo, Calif.-based Fan TV subsidiary stopped selling its set-tops this past Friday. It is also attempting to inform any customer who purchased the $150 Fan TV set-top that they're entitled to a free Nexus Player streaming device. Going forward, that player will access Fan TV's Android-based streaming app, but won't be able to authenticate TWC programming.
Privately funded with $8.4 million in capital, Fan TV pitched pay-TV operators on a next-generation set-top that was designed to integrate online video with cable programming.
TWC launched a branded version of the product, Fan TV, for $99 earlier in 2013, selling the box as a compliment to its digital video recorders. And Cox tested the box out in Southern California. DVR-reliant operators, however, did not widely embrace the product, billed as an all-in-one video solution but lacking DVR capabilities. They chose instead to integrate products, like TiVo's Roamio DVR, that also blend OTT channels.
Separately, Rovi -- which provides the pay-TV industry with metadata, user interface technology and other products -- reported third-quarter revenue of $114.9 million, down 11 percent year-over-year. The company blamed part of the decline on lower service provider revenue, with set-top box makers shipping less devices in the quarter that feature Rovi's software and data.
And during Rovi's quarterly conference call with investors, the company also said part of the decline was due to "a large part due to a major CE manufacturer going out of contract for the quarter," as Rovi CEO Tom Carson explained on the call, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript of the event. He said the company hopes to get the unnamed CE manufacturer back under license by the end of this year.
For more:
- read this Variety story
- read this Seeking Alpha transcript
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