PVR Wire

TiVo's expected to announce it's quarterly earnings in a webcast and conference call tomorrow. And while TiVo stock is up 23 percent from a year ago, it's down significantly from earlier April, when it hit a 12-month high. It's likely that TiVo will announce gains this quarter, but investing in TiVo has been a risky venture these past few months.

• Although the company has come out ahead so far in its legal battles with EchoStar, the war is not over, as TiVo's patent suit heads next to district court in Washington D.C.
• On the one hand, the recently released TiVo Series3 has received rave reviews as a PVR, the $799 price tag has likely limited sales to a niche audience for now.
• TiVo has announced some major new features to bring internet video into the living room, but it's hardly the only company to do so. Microsoft Xbox 360, or Apple iTV anyone?
  
• There are plans in the works to provide TiVo software for set-top-boxes to be rolled out by Comcast and Cox, but few details have been released on how those partnerships will work.
• DirecTV's partnership with TiVo draws to an end early next year.

It's been a busy year so far, and I look forward to seeing how TiVo CEO Tom Rogers spins some of these events during tomorrow's call. It's not all bad news, not by a long shot. But with TiVo facing tough competition from cable and satellite-provided PVRs, TiVo needs to show investors it's got a winning strategy for continuing to provide a unique user experience.

At the beginning of the month Echostar and DirecTV were both receiving criticism that they would start to show signs of losing out to cable providers bundling television, high-speed Internet and telephone services together.

However, despite the criticisms both companies have received relatively good news. Echostar has reported a stronger than expected subscriber growth for the third quarter, while DirecTV has had a slower subscriber growth, but generated more income per subscriber.

Echostar saw a 2% increase in its share price as a result of the news and DirecTV saw a rise of 5.2%. It appears that the two companies are not on the slow down just yet.

Since around mid-July DirecTV's share price has risen by over 30% and Echostar's share price has also risen by 12%. This has been strongly pushed by reports of the two companies merging.

BSkyB (BSY.L) was in the running to purchase AOL UK but a company called Carphone Warehouse ultimately won the bid. BSkyB's shareprice dropped a sizeable 5.50 to close the day at 555.00 although it's difficult to determine if it was on account of them losing out on this deal.

The NBA is going the way of the NFL as reports stated 40 NBA games would be broadcast over the web live this NBA season; however, viewers will be limited to watching teams from their local areas.

Fans will only be able to sign up for this $179.00 service through their cable or satellite provider. Subscribers can access this service through DirecTV (DTV) and Echostar (DISH) along with most cable providers

In other satellite news DirecTV successfully launched its 9S satellite in an effort to expand its ability to provide new HD and standard definition services in addition to interactive programming.

The company intends to launch two more satellites in the coming year which will eventually allow the company to offer more than 150 national HD channels and more than 1,500 local HD channels.

The only interesting news in the world of TiVo came with the coverage initiated by Oppenheimer showing the Sell, Hold, Buy, Underperform, and Outperform recommendations on the stock.

If you ever pay attention to these recommendations, you'll notice they are usually all over the place from one research firm to the next, proof that putting your money in the market is generally just a giant crap shoot. If these alleged experts can't come to a consensus on a stock, than what normal mortal can?

Finally, don't forget to check out this post to gain a chance to win a nifty TiVo Swag Bag from Brad Linder and Dave Zatz's recent sojourn to this years Digital Life.

Responding to rumors that Google is in talks to buy YouTube for as much as $1.6 billion, Google (GOOG) stock rose by 2% yesterday to close at $420.50. The stock continues to rise in after hours trading.
TiVo (TIVO) stock is slowly rebounding from a dip earlier this week following developments in its patent case with EchoStar (DISH).

BSkyB (BSY.L) this week announced it would launch a UK version of Al Gore's Current TV.

Comcast (CMCSA) has yet to decide whether its purchase of assets formerly held by Adelphia will result in higher rates or any service changes for former Adelphia cable customers. Comcast also announced this week that it would pay for more than half the cost of the $2.37 billion in wireless licenses a consortium of cable companies won through a recent FCC auction. The move will cost Comcast $1.29 billion, but will give the company the ability to lay infrastructure for wireless services in many parts of the country, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

TiVo (TIVO) stock dropped by 11% today to close at $6.67, following an appeals court ruling that allows EchoStar (DISH) to continue selling PVR units.

As mentioned earlier today by Chris, TiVo and Echostar had been locked in a patent battle; TiVo claimed that Dish Network PVRs used technology that infringed on TiVo patents, and in April a federal jury ruled in favor of TiVo. EchoStar was ordered to pay close to $90 million in damages, and to stop selling PVRs.

An appeals court temporarily blocked the injunction preventing EchoStar from selling video recorders, and on Monday, that injunction was permanently lifted.

EchoStar stock rose by about $.6 today to close at $32.13.

Hey, look at that, pretty much everybody's down today. Echostar (DISH) stock fell 65 cents, or almost 2 percent from Friday, while TiVo (TIVO) saw a more modest drop of just 6 cents. Happy start of the week!

Wait, except for DirecTV (DTV), looks like they've held steady which is funny, because they were just downgraded by Janco Partners.
Echostar, on the other hand recently completed early redemption of floating rate senior notes that were due in 2008.

We'll see if those numbers hold up over the week, and whether DirecTV's downgrade will have any impact on its price.

BSkyB shares (BSY.L) dropped four points this week, but Morgan Stanley had already adjusted the target price on Thursday, which probably had a slightly negative impact on trading. The only other significant news which could have impacted on Sky shares was the news from NTL/Telewest about their quad-play offering, which could dent Sky's 9million userbase in the UK.

Comcast (CMCSA), on the other hand, ended up slightly on the week at 39.90, and EchoStar (DISH) continued a slow rise back from their poor start to the week, ending at 32.74, up from 31.61. The net offering of approximately $500 million aggregate principal of debt securities (in accordance with Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 144A) probably helped boost trade, since it certainly wasn't any product or service announcements which helped perk things up slightly -- although, a bunch of football fanatics are attempting to set a world record for watching TV as part of the Ultimate Football Fan Contest. Good luck to them.

Lastly, DirectTV (DTV) and TiVo (TIVO) seem to have remained fairly constant arround the 19.60 and 7.60 marks respectively, with the only news from DirecTV likely to affect shares being the rejection of a lawsuit on behalf of Darlene investments.

Shares in BSkyB (BSY.L) opened at 554.00 this morning on the London Stock Exchange, and closed up at 550.00, but there really hasn't been anything significant to report on Rupert Murdoch's empire, other than news that the race to buy AOL UK is now a two-horse race between BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse. Expect shares in the UK satellite giant to change when the race hots up.

Comcast (CMCSA, CMCSK) started the day on an even 35.40 and was making slow progress beyond 36.20 shortly after lunctime, with news of the company's Q3 Earnings Call scheduled for Thursday 26 October, but recent concerns over the costs of sports on the network could have an impact on future spending.

EchoStar (DISH) continue to remain around the 31.63 mark, with late news on Friday about high-speed internet offerings to customers failing to make an impact on the price drop from last week.

Lehman Brothers downgraded DirecTV (DTV) last week, saying that there might not be much room for stocks to climb after the company's 37% run-up since the beginning of the year, although news about a new reality TV show related to MySpace could provide some welcome public interest in the network.

Lastly, TiVo (TIVO) continued to slide, if only slightly, from a 7.77 start, to a late afternoon price of 7.66, despite some gains on Friday over the Amazon partnership rumours. Only time will tell if a price decrease on the new Series 3 will help boost market opinion of the stock.

There's been a few up, a few downs but overall nothing major. The only one that hasn't really moved at all is TiVo.

Comcast (CMCSA or CMCSK) has seen a modest 3% rise over the week after signing its millionth digital phone customer and its announcement of new customer service call centers in Denver and Colorado Springs

Echostar (DISH) is down 3% on the week which could be just a continuation over the legal troubles with TiVo and possibly related to a shake up in management.

Sky (BSY.L) has steadily dropped down just over 2% this week, although I can't pinpoint it to any particular event.

DirecTV (DTV), although seeing an increase on the week overall, saw a sharp but modest drop on Thursday (see graph on right). This is more than likely to the legal claims by a dissatisfied HDTV subscriber. But this is barely a dent at the moment looking at DirecTV's recent long term share price gains.

Well there is not much to report from the weekend with the shares remaining quite stable.

The most substantial change is with Comcast (CMCSA or CMCSK) which is down nearly 1% from Friday's Close. Comcast has continued to drop despite projections that its share price would rise due to better sales projections.

Since there is not too much to report on today I though I would take a look at the long term gains and losses of our PVR company portfolio. If you had bought into the major PVR related companies 200 days ago you would have seen an average gain of 7.59%.

That's not a bad return over 200 days. Comcast, TiVo (TIVO) and DirecTV (DTV) have been the best of the bunch with increases around the 10% mark. TiVo stands out in front at 12.57%.

On the short term (50 days) TiVo stands way out in front, no doubt due to the big buzz around the release of the new TiVo Series 3 and its win against EchoStar (DISH). Echostar is the short term loser having lost 3% of its share value over the past 50 days, no doubt related to its loss against TiVo.

Out of all the companies we're keeping tabs on in our Sharewatch, TiVo was definitely the best investment earlier this year.

BSkyB (BSY.L) shares were up nominally since the beginning of the week to close up 5.50 to 562.00. The company had a bit of a hiccup this week and had to turn off it's fledgling video download service since FreeUse4WM was released and allowed users to effortlessly remove the films DRM protection.

• BSkyB halts film downloads over software cracks

Comcast (CMCSA or CMCSK) shares were projected to grow after Citibank upped its profit forecast to 1.14 per share from 1.12 in 2007, and to 1.43 per share from 1.41 in 2008. The stock was down slight by the end of the week ending at 34.46.

• Comcast Earnings Seen Growing

EchoStar (DISH) and DirecTV (DTV) both saw there shares decline slightly this week thanks to FCC comments that appeared to hinder any chance that the two companies could merge. Also, as reported here Newscorp could relinquish its 38 percent controlling stake in DirecTV in return for John Malone's stake in News Corp. Malone is the Chairman of Liberty Media.

• DirecTV, EchoStar drop on FCC comments
• News Corp. Looks to Dump DIRECTV

Finally, the venerable TiVo (TIVO) who can only seem to do right as of late (save that $800 sticker price), saw shares increase just a tad despite a busy news week. Of course, TiVo finally released their new box this week, and the device is pretty much universally lauded (save that $800 sticker price - wait I said that). TiVo also entered into a new media deal with the WPP Group. Shares were up .16 since the beginning of the week to close at 7.95.

• TiVo's New Series 3 - The Experts Weigh In
• TiVo in Ad Deal With WPP Group

Sorry we're a little late with today's PVR Wire Sharewatch. There was a mix-up at the office, and let's just say it involves two dozen eggs, a hamster, and Hampex PMP. Suffice it to say we're still cleaning up the mess.

Anyway, BSkyB (BSY.L) dropped a bit today, as did Comcast (CMCSA and CMCSK). EchoStar (DISH), DirecTV (DTV) and TiVo (TIVO) all saw modest gains, although nothing to write home about.

It was a slow new weekend for most of these companies. Today, TiVo shares rose following an announcement of a deal with Gemstar to allow TV Guide.com users to schedule TiVo recordings through the website beginning next year. But I always feel silly writing sentences like that, because we're talking about TiVo stock going up by a quarter of a percent. There's no way to know if it was related to this announcement, to speculation that the Series 3 will eb released soon, or for no particular reason at all.

Comcast, on the other hand announced that its CN8 cable news network won 8 awards in the Emmy Awards for the Mid-Atlantic region, where the network is shown.

In other industry news, DirecPath, a company run by DirecTV and a private investment firm purchased a company that provides television, voice and internet service to apartment buildings.

As the markets close on Friday, BskyB (BSY.L) ended the week exactly where it began, at 560. Comcast (CMCSA, CMCSK) dropped about half a point. Echostar (DISH) dropped about a full point, while DirecTV (DTV) ended the week just 3 cents a share down from opening on Tuesday. TiVo (TIVO)was the only company on our Sharewatch list to see an increase this week, moving from 7.77 a share on Monday to 8.03 on Friday.
Here's a roundup of the week's PVR-related financial news:

• Motley Fool takes a pretty good write up of TiVo's latest moves but also suggests investors proceed with caution.
  
• TiVo's stock rose upon its announcement of a fantasy football partnership with CBS
• Comcast to add 3,000 jobs
• Comcast customers have viewed on-demand programming 3-billion times
• EchoStar redeems notes early

The U.S. markets are back open after the labor day weekend, and we're seeing some positive movement for TiVo (TIVO), EchoStar (DISH), and DirecTV (DTV), while Comcast (CMCSA, CMCSK) shares are dipping slightly, and BSkyB (BSY.L) is seeing a major dip of 1.32%.

Here's some of the latest news affecting these companies.

TiVo's continuing to build partnerships with retailers and content producers, partly to produce revenue, and partly to reassure the industry that TiVo's executives never intended to kill the industry by reducing the effectiveness of commercials. With the highly anticipated, and probably highly-priced Series 3 due out any day now, TiVo doesn't need to be fighting too many battles as it tries to convince consumers to shell out the big bucks on its newest box.

TiVo enters partnership with CBS

In other news, as the line between cable operators and telephone companies continues to blur, DirecTV is trying to get into the game by expanding into the telephone business by testing a satellite based VoIP service.

Comcast is continuing to add subscribers as Comcast and Time Warner continue their takeover of Adelphia's assetts.

And while Comcast isn't at the head of the pack, a group of cable operators led by Comcast is still in the bidding for wireless spectrum.

A few other tidbits:

• Comcast to announce online program guide
• EchoStar redeems senior notes early

Great week for BSkyB (BSY.L) as the companies shares were at 554.00 Monday but increased a hefty 13.50 by this afternoon thanks largely to JP Morgan upping its target shareprice from 627.00 to 667.00.

• Broker tips: BSkyB, Xstrata, Sage, Diageo, easyJet

Comcast (CMCSA or CMCSK) shares ended the day slightly higher but down overall from the beginning of the week. The company is still in the process of bidding on licenses for wireless radio spectrum in the airwaves auction that's still underway. The consortium Comcast Corp. is a part of has currently won 133 licenses bidding $2.34 billion.

• Airwaves Auction Passes $13.75B Total

EchoStar (DISH) was up .60 over the course of the week to end at 32.30. EchoStars legal issues continued on Thursday when Fox requested a Florida District Court to ban EchoStar from transmitting network programming from one city to satellite subscribers in other cities. Apparently, Fox is the largest shareholder of EchoStars main competitor DirecTV (DTV). Nothing like sticking up for your little brother. DirecTV shares were up .41 on the day, and up .57 on the week to end at 19.20.

• Fox Again in Court Against EchoStar

As reported earlier in the week, TiVo (TIVO) held its quarterly conference call. Revenues rose to $59.2 million from $39.3 million in the prior quarter; however, the company still reported a quarterly loss of $6.45 million. Although the figures look poor, TiVo actually exceeded Wall Streets expectations. The shareprice fluctuated wildly during the week but ended this afternoon largely unaffected at 7.90.

• TiVo reports major losses in the 2nd quarter, but still lower losses than expected.

The U.S. markets are closed on Monday for Labor Day. We'll be back with an update on Tuesday.