TiVo is sunsetting the standalone Fan TV app for mobile devices and the web, as many of the search and recommendation capabilities housed there have been integrated into the new TiVo Experience 4 platform for retail devices and its MVPD partnerships.  

TiVo will be notifying Fan TV users of the decision in stages over the next 24 hours, and expects to remove the apps in the mid-April timeframe, according to Chris Thun, TiVo’s vice president of product.

TiVo doesn’t disclose active users for Fan TV, but said the Fan TV app has been downloaded millions of times during the years.

Rovi, which merged with TiVo in September 2016, acquired Fanhattan, the company behind the Fan TV product/platform, about two years earlier for about $12 million. In addition to the standalone app, Fanhattan, for a brief period, also developed partnerships with Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable by which the Fan TV user interface and experience was built into IP streaming devices and a touch-based remote control.

RELATED: Rovi Halts Sale of Fan TV Boxes to TWC

The Fan TV app enables users to browse from more than 1 million shows while also guiding them to the sources of that content, including pay TV providers, programmer-run apps as well as pure OTT services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, making recommendations, and enabling users to build personalized watch lists.

TiVo, which is in the process of evaluating options that could lead to the company going private or into M&A-related activities, was not monetizing Fan TV through advertising or other means, but it has been serving as an important research tool as TiVo’s been gleaning value from usage data and incorporating those learnings into its new Experience 4 platform.

Along those lines, TiVo in January introduced a device-agnostic, app-centric platform for MVPDs that will bring the TiVo experience to a wide range of retail streaming client devices and help those pay TV partners move ahead with their IPTV transitions.

RELATED: TiVo Goes Device-Agnostic with New Platform for MVPDs

The timing of the transition to the new TiVo platform, which includes voice-based navigation, is up to the individual MVPDs, but that work is already underway, Michael Hawkey, TiVo’s SVP and GM, UX, said.

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There’s a “common vision and functionality” between that new, more cloud-driven TiVo product and the Fan TV app, Thun said, noting that much of the rework done for the new platform’s graphical user interface can be traced back to Fan TV.

Adding an advanced discovery and navigation system as well as an IP-based set-top to its video technology portfolio, Rovi Corp. said it has acquired Fanhattan, a startup that is currently selling its Fan TV products through a partnership with Time Warner Cable.

Rovi said it’s buying Fanhattan in an all-cash deal, but isn’t disclosing the amount. Re/code reported that Fanhattan has been looking to sell in the neighborhood of about $15 million and that investors have put “at least $40 million into different incarnations of the company over the years.” Of recent note, this SEC filing dated March 13, 2014, shows that Fanhattan had sold about $8.39 million of a total offering of roughly $18 million.

Founded in 2010, Fanhattan has specialized in the development of a cloud-powered advanced user interface that blends live TV with video-on-demand and over-the-content that’s matched up with a video discovery system. Under the Fan TV brand, the company has also built a small IP-based set-top box and a touch-based, button-less remote control device. Fanhattan has also developed a Fan TV app for the iPad.

Following a splashy debut of its products and strategy at the D11 conference in May 2013, Fanhattan has centered its strategy on forging partnerships with MVPDs. After connecting with Cox Communications on the MSO’s “FlareWatch” technical trial, which was shut down last fall, Fanhattan followed that with a partnership with Time Warner Cable, whereby the MSO is currently offering live and on-demand content on the Fan TV platform via the TWC TV app. Under that still-active partnership, TWC customers can buy Fan TV box and remote control for $149. On average, buyers are spending about 4 hours per day using Fan TV, according to Rovi. This video posted by BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield shows the Fan TV/TWC set-up in action.

Although TWC does not appear to be promoting the offer heavily beyond this FAQ on the MSO’s website, “Fan TV is unlike what’s out there today,” Mike Angus, TWC’s SVP and GM, told Multichannel News in April soon after the MSO and Fanhattan announced the deal.

But Fan TV’s long-term position with TWC is a bit of a question as the MSO and Comcast move ahead on their proposed merger. Regarding whether the Fan TV service will end for TWC customers after that deal closes, “It is too early to comment on that,” the FAQ reads.

Rovi, which has relationships with a large array of major MVPDs and consumer electronics companies, will be looking to rapidly expand the reach of Fan TV’s platform.

The acquisition also marks an expansion of Rovi’s investments in next-gen video guide and navigation technologies and products, coming about nine months after Rovi struck a $62 million deal to acquire Veveo, a maker of a voice-based, personalized search and discovery platform.

Rovi said Fanhattan will accelerate its vision to deliver next-gen guidance and discovery using cloud, user interface and hardware technologies.

A Rovi spokesman said via email that the company intends to continue to offer Fanhattan’s products, including the Fan TV box, on a stand-alone basis. Rovi is also “very open” to working with the company’s OEM partners should they want to license the platform and build their own solutions. “We are particularly excited about scaling the Fan TV offering with service providers all over the world,” the official added.

Rovi also plans to integrate Fan TV with its existing offerings, “including integrating search, recommendations and conversational interfaces acquired through Veveo for the next-gen user interfaces and user experiences for television and video consumption.” Rovi will also fuse Fanhattan’s cloud capabilities with its own cloud and multi-screen initiatives, but has not established a timeframe on when it expects to complete that integration.

Rovi said “almost all” of the Fan TV employees are joining the company. Fanhattan founders Gilles BianRosa and Olivier Chalouhi will stay on board to join the leadership team in Rovi’s Discovery Products Business Group. BianRosa will report to Omar Javaid, SVP and GM of Rovi’s Discovery unit, and will continue to lead Fanhattan, with that team continuing to report into him.

“We believe the Fanhattan technologies and team will complement Rovi’s advanced metadata, semantic discovery, and predictive analytics capabilities to offer truly differentiated solutions to our customers,” Javaid said, in a statement.

Live and on-demand content from Time Warner Cable’s authenticated TWC TV app will feature prominently during the national retail launch of a new IP video streaming platform from Fan TV that will offer content from a set of initial partners via a small device coupled to a fancy interface, touch-based, button-less remote, and an integrated video discovery platform.

Fanhattan Inc., the company behind the Android-based Fan TV device and platform, said it is pre-selling units on its web site now for $99 during a promotional period, and expects to start shipping product in the second quarter. There’s no set date on the end of that promotional period, but the Fan TV device/remote combo will eventually carry a price of $149, according to Fan TV CEO Gilles BianRosa.

In addition to TWC TV, an app that offers in-home access to more than 300 live TV channels and a library of VOD fare, Fan TV will also boot up at retail with apps from Redbox Instant by Verizon, Crackle, Rhapsody, and Target Ticket, the electronic sell-through service launched by the retailer last fall.

Although Fan TV appears to be another player in a growing market of streaming video devices that include Apple TV, the Amazon Fire TV, Google Chromecast and the Roku platform, BianRosa said the company will lean on linear, live TV services and its integrated video discovery platform to help it stand out from the pack.

“This is not a box of apps,” BianRosa insisted. “It starts with the discovery of content.”

Live TV, he said, is the “anchor tenant” and “the main use case for this device.”

While Fan TV does plan to expand the number of apps available on its platform (Netflix and Hulu Plus are among those that are noticeably absent early on), the focus will be linking users to content from a wide range of sources, while also looking to integrate live TV services from additional multichannel programming video distributors (MVPDs).

“We can release and push new content and features to it on a weekly basis. This is day one,” BianRosa  said.

TWC, an MSO with 11 million residential subscribers, is the first MVPD to integrate with the product Fan TV will distribute nationally, but it’s not the first cable operator to work with the the company, which was founded in 2010 and has about 50 employees.

Last year, Cox Communications used an earlier iteration of Fanhattan’s platform for FlareWatch, a live TV and cloud DVR service combo delivered over IP to broadband-only customers in Orange County, Calif.  Cox shut down that brief, technical market trial in last fall. 

Fan TV is “in discussions” with multiple MVPDs, BianRosa said, noting that his company and TWC have been in discussions for about a year.

“It’s a very limited level of effort” to get an MVPD on board, he claimed, noting that Fan TV handles metadata management and other backend pieces. “MVPDs just need to connect their video feed with our device.”

Fan TV has not announced plans to have MVPDs lease its device, but during Phase I of its plan it will sell the product only via its own Web site. BianRosa said Fan TV intends to distribute products through retailer partners as well.

Fanhattan, which claims to have 2 million users for its Fan TV iPad app, made a big splash last May at the D11 Conference, announcing its box, button-less remote and platform alongside ambitions to be the “input 1 set-top box” that can seamlessly toggle between pay TV and OTT content via an integrated UI.

TWC, which is in the process of being acquired by Comcast, has bought into the concept. Last fall, Matthew Zelesko, TWC's senior vice president, converged technology group, told Multichannel News that "[t]he prospect of a customer buying a box for $99 and using that as their set-top … as an additional outlet in the house or a house full of those is a really exciting proposition for us."

“The Fan TV experience is a leap forward for the cable industry,” said Mike Angus, SVP and GM, video, for TWC, in a statement. “Fan TV is the perfect marriage of the compelling content we at Time Warner Cable bring to customers with the complementary services available to consumers, delivering both in a rich experience for seamless entertainment. The service leans into the multiple ways that consumers are increasingly watching their entertainment across live TV, VOD and streaming, and pulls them together in an intuitive product.”

Although TWC TV is an anchor tenant on Fan TV, with availability limited to TWC subscribers, Time Warner Cable also supports its TV Everywhere app on several other platforms, including PC browsers, iOS- and Android-based smartphones and tablets, Samsung smart TVs, Amazon Kindle tablets, the Xbox 360, and on Roku devices.

TWC has also developed its own cloud-based UI and is investing in a next-gen video platform based on the Reference Design Kit, the software stack for IP-based boxes being managed by Comcast, TWC and Liberty Global. Last week, TWC announced that Humax will make its first RDK-based device.