US DVR subscriber households to hit 51.1m by end of 2014
Magna Global has released a new US forecast predicting that DVR subscriber households will hit 51.1 million (43% of US TV households) by the end of 2014, up from 29.8 million (27% of TV households) at the end of 2008.
However, rising DVR penetration in the US will be more than offset by increases in TV consumption (which has been slightly less than 1% per household in recent years) and increases in total households (which has been slightly more than 1%). These latter two figures would drive a 20% increase in total viewing impressions over this ten-year time-frame, said Magna.
By 2014, Magna expects that true Video-on-Demand will reach 67.2 million households (approximately 56% of television households). This compares with 41.7 million VOD households (37% of total TV households) at the end of 2008.
It also estimates that 69.5 million households had broadband access as of the end of 2008, 59% of the US’s 118 million households. It expects that total broadband access will rise to cover 86.5 million households by the end of 2014.
At the start of the year, a report from Solutions Research Group claimed that most young TV viewers in the US are already living in a post-DVR world, with much greater availability of online video both legally and also via peer-to-peer sources (see US TV viewers living in ‘post-DVR world’).
A recent report from Nielsen, meanwhile, found that the average American watches more than 151 hours of TV per month, while those who watch video on the internet consume three hours online (see Average American watches more than 151 hours of TV per month).