Another TiVo Exec Jumps Ship

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Back in the good old days, so the stories go, sea captains considered it a point of pride to go down with the ship. If only captains of industry had the same code.

Today, hapless TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO) shareholders were once again handed the bailing pail as yet another executive saluted and said, "So long, folks." Well, what the ex-prez, Marty Yudkovitz, actually said was, "I've chosen instead to find the most logical time to resign as president and re-acquaint myself with my wife and kids."

Heartwarming. But no less mealy-mouthed than the non-reason given by CEO Mike Ramsay when he announced his plans to jump ship a couple of weeks back. At least Ramsay could say he'd been around a while; Yudkovitz had been with the company less than two years.

TiVo may be a well-known brand. It may be part of the modern lexicon. But the unfortunate fact is that TiVo has been a colossal money pit for anyone who's believed in it from the start. This chart tells the whole tale. Things have gone from bad to worse for investors, as top-line growth has never been able to make up for enormous losses and share dilution. If I were a shareholder, I'd wonder what these folks were doing to earn their half a million bucks per year, plus half a million options. Now that TV recording has been duplicated by everyone from Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and former bosom pal DirectTV (NYSE: DTV), as well as computer powerhouses Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), now the top brass have personal reasons to swim for it?

From this Fool's seat, it looks like a last gasp for TiVo. With a new generation of Sony- (NYSE: SNE) spearheaded Blu-Ray DVD recording devices getting set to hit the market, promising removable storage and other amazing goodies, you have to wonder what, if anything, will be left for TiVo. Yes, the TiVo enthusiasts will scream up and down that it's not fair, that TiVo's got better features than anything else out there. But features can't keep a company afloat. Commitment to a winning business plan might. And when the two top admirals leave their high-paying jobs within a month, you have to seriously wonder what sort of executions they saw coming up on the horizon.

For related Foolishness:

• Rick Munarriz says that TiVo will bounce back, and makes other predictions.
• Alyce Lomax thinks TiVo is still looking ahead.
• TiVo to Go: Savior, or last grasp at the lifeline?

Seth Jayson prefers his fast-growing tech firms to actually grow, and to have a moat of some kind. At the time of publication, he had positions in no company mentioned. View his stock holdings and Fool profile here. Fool rules are here. TiVo is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor pick.