The Washington Post’s Frank Ahrens has this piece today about DVRs and how they can actually help boost viewing to mass market broadcast network programming, contrary to the doom-and-gloom prognistications that arose when Tivo, for example, first became popular.
Or so says CBS research head David Poltrack, who has a track record of siphoning through data on trends that spell trouble for traditional broadcasters and making lemonade from the resulting lemons. Ahrens cites Nielsen statistics (no doubt provided by CBS) that show that 84% of all prime-time television viewing in DVR households is live, meaning that the commercials, the lifeblood of network TV, are hard to skip.
While that sounds good, it means that 16% of all prime-time viewing is not live but recorded. What ratio of prime-time viewing was recorded before the DVR came along and folks only had VCRs (Nielsen began to include DVRs in its people meter viewing statistics only in December 2005)? In all likelihood, maybe only 5% at most.
Still, even if the amount of recorded programming is on the rise, advertisers are learning to adapt to the technology, by, for example, making sure their logos appearing through commercials so that even if DVR viewers fast-forward, some kind of sponsored message comes through.
Cynthia Brumfield at 3:21 PM|Comments(1)
Two notes: first the quality of broadcast TV shows has improved even in the past few years. I think cheaper technology has made some shows look almost like movies. Other shows like "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" show that originality is rewarded.
Second note: The type of people I know that buy Tivos are already TV addicts. They are really into TV and it forms a central part of their lives. So it is no surprise they would watch even more TV, as the main reason why they bought a Tivo in the first place was because they didn't have enough time in the day to watch all the shows they wanted to.
Posted by: Mr. K. at August 20, 2006 11:34 PM
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