Boardroom shakeup may indicate that trouble is brewing at TiVo

By Eric Brackett Published August 17, 2018

In its early days, TiVo helped change the way people consumed media by making it easy to record and watch TV shows on demand. There was even a period of time where TiVo became a verb in a similar way some people used to use the phrase “Xerox it” as a catch-all for making photocopies. However, times have changed, and TiVo is going through a bit of a rough patch.

On Thursday, July 5, the company announced that Enrique Rodriguez would be resigning from his role as CEO of TiVo in order to pursue opportunities with Liberty Global, which is one of TiVo’s customers. Rodriguez announced that he would be remaining with TiVo in an advisory capacity and said that he was looking forward to working with Tivo as a partner and customer.

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Following Rodriguez’s departure, TiVo announced that Raghu Rau had been named interim CEO. Rau has been a long-time member of TiVo’s board of directors. The company said that it is currently undergoing a search for a long-term CEO to lead the company into the future. For his part, Rau said that he was excited to be taking on the new role of CEO and expects the company to grow in the future.

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By itself, the news of Rodriguez’s departure might not warrant a closer look. People leave for new jobs all the time for a variety of reasons unrelated to the health of their current company. However, the departure of TiVo’s CEO does stand out for a couple of reasons. For starters, he held the job for less than a year, having taken the position of CEO in November of last year. According to Forbes, the average tenure of a CEO is just under a decade making Rodriguez’s reign a rather short one.

Perhaps more troubling is the fact that Rodriguez is not the only executive to recently leave the company. His decision follows in the footsteps of former CTO Dan Philips who left TiVo to join Hulu.

While it is difficult to predict what these changes mean for TiVo in the long term, the short-term impact is much clearer. The company’s stock fell by about four percent following the news that Rodriguez would be leaving the company.

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