TiVo sees DirecTV under Liberty as "positive"

By Yinka Adegoke

NEW YORK (Reuters) - TiVo Inc. said on Monday it expects its relationship with DirecTV Group Inc. to improve after the satellite television provider is taken over by John Malone's Liberty Media Corp..

DirecTV said in August 2005 that it would stop marketing TiVo digital video recorders to its customers, focusing instead on boxes made by NDS, a company that is owned by DirecTV's largest shareholder News Corp.

But with control of DirecTV expected to pass from News Corp. to Liberty Media later this year, that could be "positive" for TiVo, said its Chief Executive Tom Rogers.

"Liberty is a company that has no ownership interests, now or after the DirecTV closes, in a competing DVR, and that probably changes things," Rogers told a Deutsche Bank investor conference.

Rogers said people he knew at Liberty were fans of TiVo DVRs.

"I look at that as a positive in terms of a change of ownership though that deal hasn't closed yet," he added.

Control of DirecTV will be passed to Liberty as part of an $11 billion exchange of cash and assets with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Over 3 million DirecTV customers are also TiVo users.

Investors view TiVo's fortunes as closely linked to its relationships with cable and satellite operators.