Tom Rogers

Frankly Inc., a content and monetization platform for broadcasters and media companies, has appointed Tom Rogers and Steve Zenz to its board of directors. The appointment will be effective immediately, and follows the resignation […]

Tom Rogers, TiVo’s longtime CEO, will resign in early 2016, but will continue with TiVo as non-executive chairman of the board as of Feb. 1, 2016.

Ask TiVo CEO Tom Rogers to see the future of media and he’ll tell you clearly — personalization, something that will forever break the editorial control of Big Media and the tyranny of choice. In truth, however, personalization, even in digital media, has not come very far, with most consumers still reading or watching packages of channels or stories curated for them by providers.

When many studios license shows to Netflix they stipulate that the content can’t be distributed in the U.S. through a pay TV operator’s set-top box — but that should change, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers told analysts Tuesday. Netflix “has clearly risen to the level of a must-have” for consumers who want streamed video. And once Netflix can negotiate changes in its contracts “increasingly we’re hearing operators wanting to include Netflix in their distribution” after years of considering it a threat.

Television is in trouble if it continues to rely on “much weaker data than, say, the Internet is able to provide,” says Tom Rogers, who as CEO of TiVo has a vested interest in set-top box audience measurement. “I don’t think (it) can go on much longer without that kind of precision and accountability.”

For TiVo, the future will be less about DVRs and more about creating advanced TV software packages for cable systems and other pay TV operators that integrate all forms of on-demand content.