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Profitability is still at best a quarter away, but TiVo (TIVO - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) is making progress.

The company narrowed loss in the fourth quarter, as service and technology revenue rose 22%, and issued in-line guidance for the current quarter.

Net loss for the fourth quarter was $18.7 million, compared with a net loss of $21.1 million the year before.

The digital-video-recorder pioneer lost 19 cents a share, compared with 25 cents a share the year before. It was narrower than Thomson First Call analyst expectations of 36 cents a share.

Service and technology revenue increased year over year to $57.4 million in the quarter ended Jan. 31, compared with $47 million the year before. Analysts were expecting sales of $54.9 million.

Adjusted EBITDA loss was $14.2 million, compared with a loss of $19.9 million in the year-ago period.

Shares of TiVo were up 2.4%, or 15 cents, to $6.29 in extended trading.

In the fourth quarter, TiVo-owned subscription gross additions were 163,000, which increased overall subscriptions to 1.7 million.

TiVo also reported a net decline to 2.7 million DirecTV TiVo subscriptions during the period because DirecTV deployed fewer TiVo boxes and because there was continued churn of existing DirecTV TiVo subscriptions, the company said.

Cumulative total subscriptions as of Jan. 31 were up slightly from last quarter to 4.4 million.

For the first quarter of fiscal 2008, TiVo forecasts service and technology revenue in the range of $57 million to $58 million. Analysts were expecting $58 million. Net loss is likely to be $4 million to break-even.