US DVR Viewers Quick To Catch-Up On Programmes

The study discovered that, on average, more than half of all DVR primetime programme playback is done within the same day it was recorded. And by the end of the following day, DVR owners have completed approximately three-quarters of all program playback.

Susie Thomas, senior vice president, director of Research and Insights at Palisades MediaGroup, said: “Nielsen estimates DVR penetration to be at 20%, up from 12% in January of this year. While this is a good-sized increase, the impact on viewership remains minor.”

According to the study, ratings increased just over 15% due to DVR playback from live to live-plus-seven. The average rating against adults aged 18-49 was 2.5 for live viewing and 2.9 for live-plus-seven viewing; an increase of only 16.7%.

While fast-forwarding through the ads is still an issue, not all people who use a DVR fast-forward. The data shows that less than half of people who watch a recorded program fast-forward through the ads during playback.

“Of course there are fluctuations when looking at the data program-by-program,” noted Thomas, “but overall DVR usage is not dramatically cutting into live viewing.”

Equally significant, the top 10 most-DVR’d primetime shows among adults 18-49 experience as much as 58% of playback on the same day and as little as 27%.

The recent Tiscali TV Trends Report 2008 found that more than a third of British consumers (37%) are now regularly watching on demand content, twice as many as last year (17%).

The report shows that 86% of those watching on-demand TV are watching at least as much, if not more TV than a year ago (see More Than A third Of British Consumers Watch On-Demand Content).

Meanwhile, a forecast from In-Stat has revealed that the worldwide installed base of PVR products is on track to reach 44.6 million at year-end 2007, up from 33.9 million at the end of 2006 (see PVR Market Maturing).