VOD Now In 25 Million US Cable Homes

However, LRG says that the overall impact of digital video recorders (DVRs) and VOD on US television viewing remains small, estimating that less than 4% of all TV viewing in the US is of recorded DVR programmes or on-demand viewing, up from about 2% a year ago.

The report found that the number of DVR and VOD users have significantly increased in recent years.

LRG says that 60% of all digital cable subscribers have used VOD, up from 25% two years ago, and about 12% of households in the US now have a DVR, up from 3% only two years ago.

The mean reported number of programmes recorded each week in DVR households increased by 23% in the past year, to 11.3 programmes recorded per week.

In addition, among cable TV users, the reported mean number of total on-demand programmes and movies ordered per week increased by 33% in the past year, to 4.8% per week.

LRG said that premium on-demand programmes and movies account for half of all reported on-demand usage, whilst 62% of DVR subscribers, and 64% of VOD users, say that they usually watch recorded or on-demand programmes when there is no scheduled TV on that they want to watch.

It also says that by the end of 2010 over 50 million households will have a DVR and about 42 million will have access to VOD from their cable provider.

However, despite the growth in users and usage of DVRs and VOD, these services still represent a very small portion of all TV viewing in the US.

Recent research from Magna Global said that VOD is expected to reach 65.6 million US households by 2010, compared with 26.5 million VOD households at the end of Q2 2006 (see VOD To Reach Over 65 Million US Households By 2010).

Meanwhile, iSuppli has forecast that the overall global VOD market will grow from below $2 billion in 2006 to nearly $13 billion in 2010 (see VOD Market To See Massive Growth).