Rebranding Roundup: Macrovision Goes For Rovi; Mogulus Goes LiveStream
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
Couple of interesting rebrands in our industry:
Macrovision (NSDQ: MVSN), the digital media solutions and IPG company, has come to a macro decision: it is changing its rather obtuse name to another obtuse but more catchy name: Rovi. It will rebrand the company after its annual shareholder meeting on July 15thif approved by shareholders, the company's stock symbol would also change. The company, which sold off TV Guide Magazine and online businesses and the TVG Network in the last year but retained the IPG business, says the new name reflects all the changes it has gone through in the last year with acquisitions and dispositions of non-core assets. Besides TV Guide business, it bought entertainment discovery service Muze for $16.5 million earlier this year. The company reported its better-than-expected Q109 earnings earlier this month, and its net loss increased to $41.5 million from a profit of $5 million a year ago, mainly on account of losses of its sold divisions. More details in release.
Meanwhile, on the startup side, online video live streaming company Mogulus, backed by *Gannett* among others, has gone the generic route and change its name to, yes, Livestream. It bought the domain name for about $100K, says this report, and wants to do away with the somewhat confusing pronunciation of its name. Competition in the live streaming sector is heavy, with the likes of Paltalk, Stikam, Kyte, Qik, Justin.tv in the sector, but says it has signed on more than 1,000 pro accountsstarting at $350 per monthand has customers such as USAT (through its *Gannett* connection) and C-Span, among others. The company says it is already profitable on the pro-accounts, and has a bunch of cash left from its $12.7 million funding it has raised till now. It still needs a lot more of those paying accounts to survive, though. More in release.
By Rafat Ali