TiVo rises on partnerships with Apple iPod, Sony PSP

Shares of TiVo Inc. climbed Monday after the maker of digital-video recorders unveiled a service allowing videos recorded using TiVo's product to work with Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod music player or Sony Corp.'s PSP portable gaming device.

Stock of Alviso, California-based TiVo rose 24 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $5.51 in late-morning trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock has traded between $3.45 and $7.75.

TiVo's new feature builds upon the company's existing TiVoToGo feature, which enable subscribers to transfer their recorded programs, pictures and music back and forth between the TiVo device and a personal computer or laptop.

TiVo is testing the new feature with select subscribers, and it hopes to roll the service out to all TiVo Series2 customers in the first quarter.

TiVo has been pushing new features in its device since it faces competition from cable companies and satellite service provider EchoStar Communications Corp., which are offering digital-video recorders for a monthly subscription fee that is often cheaper than TiVo's product offering.

Earlier this month, TiVo formed a partnership with Yahoo Inc. to allow TiVo subscribers to program their digital video recorders from Yahoo's Web site. The deal is expected to yield more features.

DirecTV Group Inc., which has been using TiVo's product, is also phasing out the device in favor of a competing box from News Corp.

Stanford Financial Group analyst Frederick Moran said in a note that he sees subscriber growth slowing for TiVo. He added, however, that glitches to the News Corp. device led to DirecTV shipping more TiVo boxes in the third quarter, so it should be a positive period, AP reported. V.A.