Nielsen Says DVR Usage at 20.5%

According to TV ratings company Nielsen, the number of homes with DVRs more than doubled from last year. The survey also found that the number of households with digital video recorders is now 20.5%, according to Nielsen's National People Meter sample of U.S. households. In May 2007, the number was at 17.2%, so it's come a long way in just a few months. When Nielsen first started measuring DVR usage in January 2006, DVR penetration was about 8% of households. In August 2007, research company The Leichtman Group estimated that DVR usage was at 20%.  Shortly after that research news was published, IBM released its own commissioned study that found DVR usage was at--wait for it--24%. So Nielsen says 20.5%, Leichtman says 20%, IBM says 24%. It's all pretty close to me. It's great to have multiple studies and companies come up with numbers that are similar. I like Nielsen's since it measures actual usage from a panel of actual TV viewers. Anyway, looks like DVR usage is definitely picking up, but I wonder if it will slow down since there are more options today. For example, I can still watch the latest episodes of Heroes even if my DVR doesn't record an episode because of conflicts. I can watch it live on TV, with my DVR, via NBC.com, downloading it illegally on BitTorrent, or through NetFlix's Watch Instantly service. Plus season one of Heroes is still available on iTunes. And Season two should be up on Hulu, whenever that launches. So as we get more choices for watching TV, people may find that they don't need DVRs as much as they used to.  As much as I enjoy my DVR, I'm definitely watching TV using these alternate methods.
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