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- Mid-range users of DVRs watch more TV overall than the average person; about one-third of their TV viewing being time-shifted.
- Light DVR (70 percent of all DVR households) watch less TV than the average viewer. Most in this group have higher incomes (over $100,000 a year) are are likely to own an HDTV set.
- Most recorded shows are top-rated scripted dramas, as well as high profile reality shows
- Heavily recorded daytimes shows are soap operas and talk shows like Oprah.
DVRs Increase TV Viewing by 3%
February 25th, 2008 No Comments
I always warn my friends: Don't buy a DVR! Especially if you're addicted to TV. Because you'll never want to leave the house.
That's my warning to people because I'm addicted to TV. I can watch pretty much anything like random home decorating shows, any given episode of Mythbusters, UFC fights that I know I've already watched years ago, countdown shows on VH1 or E! Plus I closely follow lots of prime time shows like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, 24, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Lost, or Heroes. I barely have time to do anything else.
I bought my first DVR, a Panasonic ShowStopper ReplayTV, around 2002. Immediately, my addiction to TV grew even scarier. I watched shows I never could before. Plus I watched any random show suggested by my DVR. I didn't care.
So I scoffed when I saw this story saying that DVRs increase prime-time TV viewing by 3%. My viewing overall, has increased, oh, 100% probably.
This data is from Nielsen Media Research, who also found that those that use DVRs the most are middle-income women aged 18 to 49, who record and watch 26 hours of TV a week. The demographic with the fewest uses of DVRs are men 18 to 34.
Other factoids:
Posted in research 
I’ve always been very skeptical about articles that show up in Media Week (or Variety for that matter.) They always seem biased against the DVR and I think that this is a good example where they’ve cherry picked the data to understate the growth of DVR usuage. At first glance a 3% increase makes it seems like DVRs aren’t that big of a deal, but when you take a closer look at the article, the 3% really represents prime time viewing.
This doesn’t make any sense to me because as a DVR owner, I’ve found that “prime time” has changed. My heavy TV watching is actually on Saturday mornings, only instead of watching cartoons like I did when I was a kid, I’m catching up on all of the shows that I missed during the weeknights. According to MediaWeek, this would mean that my DVR actually causes me to watch less prime time, even though I’m watching significantly more television. I bet if they reported the percentage increase during the weekends, it would be off the charts.
Relying on averages can also skew this data. They should have provided the median and mean data as well, so that we could get a better sense of how much the super users (or the so called “light” DVR users) are skewing these numbers.