68% of DVR Owners Watch Recorded Content Instead of Live Programming
By Larry Barrett -- Multichannel News, 9/15/2008 12:35:00 PM
Digital video recorders are now found in more than 27% of U.S. households but their presence isn’t having a significant impact on television viewing habits, according to a report by consumer research Leichtman Research Group Inc.
And more than 30% of U.S. homes have at least two DVRs and 87% of DVR owners said they would recommend the device to a friend. On a scale of 1-10, 81% of owners rate their DVR 8-10 with 45% assigning it a perfect 10.
“The number of US households with DVRs has essentially doubled in the past two years, and—with a continued push from cable, DBS, and Telco TV providers—will likely double again over the next four years,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group. “DVRs, along with on-demand, continue to change the way that many people watch TV. LRG forecasts that DVR and on-demand’s share of total TV viewing time in the U.S. will increase from about 6% today to 16% at the end of 2012.”
Other finding based on a survey of 1,300 households:
-- 35% of DVR owners feel that they spend more time watching programs recorded on their DVR than regularly scheduled programs.
-- 45% of DVR owners record five or fewer programs per week.
-- 68% of digital cable subscribers say that they have used video on demand—with 85% of this group having used VOD in the past month.
-- 42% of VOD users are more likely to keep digital cable because of on-demand.
4 comments:
I feel that the statement "...their [DVR's] presence isn't having a significant impact on television viewing habits" is slightly misleading. It would seem that if if over 1/4 of U.S. households have DVR's that alone would indicate a change in viewing habits, right? I suppose the fact that 45% of those owners are recording five or fewer programs each week shows some justification for the statement. Also, the use of VOD could be seen as supplementary to the actual TV viewing habits, but isn't this still an impact on viewing habits as opposed to before DVR's were available? I wish the article went more in-depth into the facts behind the numbers. Now excuse me while I go DVR some VOD before COM430.
I'm shocked but I can't say that'm surprised. It is almost expected that you have a DVR. Especially since most digital cable companies are bundling it with their services. Personally I don't have a DVR but I have used VOD but only to re-watch episodes that I had watched.
I know this article is about the number of houses with DVRs, but a thought just came to mind.
My girlfriend pays for the premium service Showtime. I can pretty confidently say that she has never actually watched the channel (as in tuning in to, say, channel number XX).
But, she does watch several of Showtime's shows On Demand every week.
I wonder how Showtime and HBO feel about VOD compared to broadcast networks because Showtime does not generally have outside commercials. During their shows they have commercials to promote other shows, but there are no commercials for products or services.
To go off of Brian's last comment, HBO and Showtime aren't getting a fraction of the damage the broadcast stations are receiving. You're right, they generally do not have outside commercials other that the ones advertising their future programs. That is because they are premium services and make most of their money from their subscribers. So in a way DVRs are almost helping premium channels to retain their subscribers, because otherwise those people would be more likely to miss the shows they've already paid for.
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