DVRs Now in Over One-Quarter of US Households

DVR Owners are Very Happy, but Impact on Total TV Viewing Remains Modest

DURHAM, NH — New consumer research from Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (LRG) found that 27% of TV households in the United States have at least one Digital Video Recorder (DVR), and 30% of those households have more than one DVR.

DVR owners are very happy with the service – 87% would recommend their DVR service to a friend, and 81% rate their DVR 8-10 on a 10 point scale (with 45% rating the service as 10). Yet recorded viewing is not necessarily the priority in DVR households – 68% of DVR owners say that they usually watch recorded DVR programs when there is nothing on regularly scheduled TV that they want to watch.

These findings are based on a survey of 1,300 households throughout the United States, and are part of LRG’s study, On-Demand TV 2008: A Nationwide Study on VOD and DVRs. This is LRG’s seventh annual study on this topic.

LRG’s research also found that:

• 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

“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, Inc. “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 US will increase from about 6% today to 16% at the end of 2012.”

On-Demand TV 2008: A Nationwide Study on VOD and DVRs is based on a telephone survey of 1,300 adults age 18+ from throughout the continental US in households with a TV set. The survey was conducted in July 2008. The random sample of respondents was distributed to best reflect the demographic and geographic make-up of the US. The overall sample has a statistical margin of error of +/- 2.7%.