One Quarter of DVR Owners Watch Time-Shifted TV

by

Another week, another study…

RINGWOOD, N.J., April 26 /PRNewswire/ — According to the Total TV Audience Monitor (T-TAM), an annual syndicated report which measures total TV viewing, about one-fourth (24%) of DVR owners actually watch time-shifted TV in the average week. Furthermore, only 6% of DVR owner’s total weekly viewing time is shifted. DVR owners watch an average of 29.25 hours of TV in a week, and only 1.7 of those hours are shifted.

The T-TAM study reports that DVR owners watch 2 more hours of TV in an average week compared to non-owners. Those who watch any time-shifted content consume the most TV — 30 hours per week. Syndicated programs (8%) are amongst the most popular genres time-shifted by men. Sports events and news are the least likely types of programming to be viewed as shifted. Daytime soaps account for 26% of quarter hours viewed as time-shifted by women.

According to Barbara Leflein, with Total TV Audience Monitor, “there’s an incremental audience lift of as much as 9% among 35-49 year olds for select broadcast networks during primetime, when time shifted viewing is included. This is a significant finding, because when combined with out-of-home viewing, traditional measures can miss over one-fifth of time shifter’s viewing in the average week.”

The T-TAM 2005 study, also uncovered these key DVR facts:

  • 17% of adults 18+ (36 million) report owning a DVR, an increase of 55% from the 11% reported in the 2004 study.
  • The recent growth in DVR ownership can be attributed to upgrading to set-top boxes with built-in DVRs (4% of adults in 2004 to 8% in 2005). The penetration of TiVo and Replay units remained unchanged from 2004 (3% TiVo & 4% Replay).
  • The West Central and South East territories have the highest DVR penetration levels (20% and 19% respectively). Penetration levels in these regions doubled since 2004.
  • DVR owners are more likely than the average adult TV viewer to be: college educated (41%), employed in a professional occupation (36%) or self-employed (11%)
  • DVR owners are also more likely to visit restaurants (24%), bars (9%), hotels (6%) or airports (3%)
  • The average DVR owner has 3.3 working TVs compared to 2.9 among non- owners and is more likely to subscribe to premium pay channels and VOD.


T-TAM is available as a syndicated service to media and marketing companies. The Fall 2005 study is available in April 2006 for up-fronts.

About the Total TV Audience Monitor

The Total TV Audience Monitor (T-TAM) is a national, persons-based audience measurement service established in 2003 to capture and report all TV viewing no matter where it takes place. Out-of-home viewing is defined as any viewing outside of a primary residence — second homes, hotels/motels, colleges, workplace, etc. T-TAM is supported by sponsors and subscribers including ESPN, FOX, NFL, Lifetime and ABC.

For more information about The Total TV Audience Monitor (T-TAM), please contact Leflein Associates at 973-728-8877 or logon to http://www.totaltvmonitor.com/.

3 thoughts on “One Quarter of DVR Owners Watch Time-Shifted TV”

  1. That 6% weekly time shift stat seems wacky. Maybe I’m the oddball, but literally 100% of my TV viewing is time shifted, even if it’s only by a few minutes to allow for skipping commercials.

    If people aren’t timeshifting, that means they’re letting the commercials run. What’s the point of having a DVR if you don’t use it to timeshift or skip commercials?

  2. I saw that and thought about posting it in TiVoLovers – but it just seemed to poorly done.

    For example: The recent growth in DVR ownership can be attributed to upgrading to set-top boxes with built-in DVRs (4% of adults in 2004 to 8% in 2005). The penetration of TiVo and Replay units remained unchanged from 2004 (3% TiVo & 4% Replay).

    I call bullshit. TiVo has sold orders of magnitude more units than RTV, they probably sold more in the past year than RTV sold – ever. And somehow their sample has more RTV users than TiVo? What? And those figures don’t seem to jive with all the other data I’ve seen.

    And I know the plural of annecdote is not data, but the usage patterns reported here go against just about every DVR owner I know, which is a fair number. Sure, I know a lot of weird people, but still. :-)

  3. That’s why it’s interesting reading – the numbers are bizarre. :D “Research” that comes with a press release and a price tag often seems to originate in left field.

Comments are closed.