DVRs levelling off at about half of all US TV households

70% of Households Have a DVR, Netflix, or use on-Demand

DURHAM, NH — New consumer research from Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (LRG) found that 47% of TV households in the US have at least one Digital Video Recorder (DVR) — an increase from 40% in 2010, and 23% in 2007. In addition, 50% of households with a DVR now have DVR service on more than one TV set, up from 30% five years ago. Overall, about 23% of households have DVR on more than one TV set — compared to 20% last year, and 8% five years ago.

The survey also found that 70% of households have a DVR, subscribe to Netflix, or use on-Demand (VOD) from a cable or Telco provider — with 23% of households using two of the services, and 11% using all three.

These findings are based on a telephone survey of 1,250 households throughout the United States, and are part of LRG’s study, ‘On-Demand TV 2013: A Nationwide Study on VOD and DVRs’. This is LRG’s twelfth annual study of this topic.

Other related findings include:

• 55% of households that subscribe to a multi-channel video service have a DVR — compared to 4% of TV households that do not subscribe to a multi-channel video service
• 58% of households with annual household incomes >$50,000 have a DVR — compared to 30% with incomes < $50,000
• 61% of all cable subscribers have used VOD — compared to 43% in 2008, and 10% in 2004
• 62% of digital cable subscribers, and 57% of Telco video subscribers, used on-Demand in the past month
• 29% of Netflix subscribers stream video daily, and 70% weekly — up from 10% daily, and 43% weekly in 2010
• Netflix subscribers report watching, on average, 19.6 TV shows per month — up from 12.7 in 2012, and 9.9 in 2011
• The mean annual income of those who use all three services (DVR, Netflix, and DVR) is $96,900 — 90% above the mean income of those who use none of the services

“The ways to watch video in non-traditional forms have dramatically expanded over the past decade. In 2004, 3% of all households had a DVR; 10% of cable subscribers had ever used VOD; and Netflix did not exist yet,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc. “Today, 70% of households use at least one of these services, and over one-third of all households use more than one of these on-demand services.”