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DVR Fallout: More People Delaying Season Premiere Watching

Associated Press file photo (2005)

About 34 percent of American households use a DVR of some sort to record shows for viewing later.

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By RICHARD MULLINS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 12, 2009

Hollywood calls them "Season Premiere" TV shows.

Millions more Americans call them "Shows I'll get around to watching, sometime."

The DVR takeover of America's living room continues briskly, and more Americans looked at the January launch of shows like "Lost," "24" and "American Idol" and decided to watch later. Sometimes a week or two later.

In a study of TiVo users, the digital video recorder company found six of the seven top season shows that premiered in January received more than half their audiences from people who played them back later. "Lost" topped the list with 67 percent of viewers waiting to watch.

Oddly, the more popular the show, the more likely people were to watch later. Almost a third of "Lost" viewers waited between three days and two weeks after the original airing to watch the first episode of the top-rated show.

By contrast, "Homeland Security USA" and "Primetime: What Would You Do," have smaller audiences but also much less time shifting, TiVo found.

Presently, about 34 percent of American households use a DVR of some sort to record shows for viewing later – an important trend for advertisers who loath the ability of viewers to skip TV commercials.

The wait-to-watch trend is altogether more telling because more shows than usual ended up starting in January, thanks to last year's writer's strike. "Lost" would have started last fall, but instead ABC started it in January. If trends hold, the vast majority of top shows could find themselves watched at a much later date.

"Unless you are just swamped with everything else in your life, you probably don't wait more than a week to watch your recorded shows," said Kurt Scherf, vice president of the media and technology research firm Parks Associates. "Granted, I still have a pile of 'My Name Is Earl' shows on my DVR that I haven't gotten to in weeks."

Reporter Richard Mullins can be reached at (813) 259-7919.

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