By 2010 there will be 34 million digital video recorder (DVR) subscribers (29.5% of households) in the US, up from 13.5 million (12.3% of TV households) at the end of the first quarter of 2006 and 18 million (16.4% of TV households) at the end of 2006, according to a new study released by Magna Global.
DVRs, the US terminology for the UK’s Sky+ box, have caused concern for advertisers because of their ability to allow users to skip ad breaks (see
Ad Recognition Not Affected By PVRs).
The study predicts that by 2010 video-on-demand (VOD) will reach 65 million US households compared with 25.1 million VOD households (23.5% of total TV households) at the end of Q1 2006.
Magna Global estimates that by the end of March there were 52.7 million US households with broadband access out of a total of 115 million households and goes on to forecast that during the fourth quarter of 2006 broadband penetration will exceed 50% of households.
The report says that including both dial-up and broadband internet, some 68.5 million households (59%) now have some form of internet access, a slight increase on the last quarter as most households taking up broadband already had some form of internet access.
In its analysis of service providers, the report notes that Time Warner currently has 1.7 million PVR subscribers, equal to 30.0% of its digital cable homes Time Warner’s own figures show that 53% of digital subscribers use VOD services on a monthly basis, with the average user accessing it once a day or approximately 30 times a month.
In addition, 70% (about 6.5 million subscribers) of Comcast’s digital customers use VOD monthly, compared to about 4 million a year ago.
Recent research by In-Stat showed that global shipments of personal video recorders (PVRs) reached 19 million in 2005 (see Worldwide PVR Shipments Hit 19 Million).
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