TiVo is the kind of company that isn't afraid of a fight. Over the last few years, it has turned patent disputes with AT&T, Dish, Verizon, and Microsoft into settlements and licensing deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And its CEO, Tom Rogers, seems to enjoy publicly criticizing competitors, too. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Rogers said that pay-TV companies that don't use TiVo devices are offering their customers inferior DVRs. "Even though they have the scale and they have the resources, it may not be in their DNA to actually be leading innovators," he said Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs Annual Communacopia Conference in New York.

Most major cable and satellite companies have opted to build their own DVRs instead of partnering with TiVo — notably, Dish has its Hopper lineup, and DirecTV is pushing its Genie DVRs. The Reporter said Rogers argued that this situation could change over time, leaving TiVo with plenty of room to grow since its DVRs are currently being used by about a quarter of TV providers in the US. This wasn't the first time Rogers had some biting words for his rivals. At January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, he said that Cisco and Motorola — two companies TiVo is currently suing — have let the TV industry down by not delivering innovative products.