According to research from Leichtman Research Group, 25% of U.S. households have at least 1 DVR. Over 30% have at least two DVRs. The research company polled 1,300 households in the U.S. (and apparently has been doing these surveys for the last seven years).

Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group said that the number of US households with DVRs has essentially doubled in the past two years and it “will likely double again over the next four years.”

“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 U.S. will increase from about 6% today to 16% at the end of 2012.”

• 87% of DVR owners said they would recommend the DVR to a friend.
• On a scale of 1-10, 81% of owners rate their DVR 8-10 with 45% assigning it a perfect 10.
• 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 VOD–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.

Bonus: For those still reading, you can download the PDF from the company here.  (PDF)

I always warn my friends: Don’t buy a DVR! Especially if you’re addicted to TV. Because you’ll never want to leave the house.

That’s my warning to people because I’m addicted to TV. I can watch pretty much anything like random home decorating shows, any given episode of Mythbusters, UFC fights that I know I’ve already watched years ago, countdown shows on VH1 or E! Plus I closely follow lots of prime time shows like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, 24, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Lost, or Heroes. I barely have time to do anything else.

I bought my first DVR, a Panasonic ShowStopper ReplayTV, around 2002. Immediately, my addiction to TV grew even scarier. I watched shows I never could before. Plus I watched any random show suggested by my DVR. I didn’t care.

So I scoffed when I saw this story saying that DVRs increase prime-time TV viewing by 3%. My viewing overall, has increased, oh, 100% probably.
This data is from Nielsen Media Research, who also found that those that use DVRs the most are middle-income women aged 18 to 49, who record and watch 26 hours of TV a week. The demographic with the fewest uses of DVRs are men 18 to 34.

Other factoids:

• Mid-range users of DVRs watch more TV overall than the average person; about one-third of their TV viewing being time-shifted.
• Light DVR (70 percent of all DVR households) watch less TV than the average viewer. Most in this group have higher incomes (over $100,000 a year) are are likely to own an HDTV set.
• Most recorded shows are top-rated scripted dramas, as well as high profile reality shows
• Heavily recorded daytimes shows are soap operas and talk shows like Oprah.

Other than the 3% increase finding, the second most interesting result from this study is that women use DVRs as much as they do. This is s somewhat surprising since DVRs were initially only for the tech-savvy geeks, which were usually men or those in the tech field. Now, I think this shift in demographics means that DVRs are finally hitting the mainstream. They’re getting easier to use and are more popular, perhaps as more people shift to HDTV.

What do think?

Technorati Tags: DVR, Nielsen, Tivo, HDTV, HD, HD DVR

According to In-Stat, the DVR market is growing by leaps and bounds worldwide. They estimate that DVR unit shipments will reach 31.6 million by 2011 worldwide, up from 19.5 million in 2007.

In-Stat also says that TiVo is the top DVR company as measured by total subscribers. The next top providers are EchoStar, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and BSkyB.

Apparently, lots of growth is happening in Europe and Asia. I think most of those are happening from IPTV deployments, since most IPTV services have DVR functionality and IPTV is
growing rapidly in Asia and Europe. As more companies around the world turn to IPTV, DVR usage and deployment will grow–both are intertwined.

Just to clarify, IPTV is commonly defined as broadcast TV delivered via broadband over a closed network, like phone lines (DSL) or fiber to the home. IPTV hasn’t made a big dent here in the U.S. since cable and satellite are the biggest TV providers. But AT&T’s U-Verse and Verizon’s FiOS TV are finally seeing subscribers in the hundreds of thousands here in the U.S. And those numbers will continue to grow. And many of those people will be using DVRs.

[Via In-Stat Press Release.]

Technorati Tags: DVR, In-Stat, IPTV, U-verse, FiOS TV, Verizon, AT&T, digital video recorder, research, analysis

According to TV ratings company Nielsen, the number of homes with DVRs more than doubled from last year. The survey also found that the number of households with digital video recorders is now 20.5%, according to Nielsen’s National People Meter sample of U.S. households.

In May 2007, the number was at 17.2%, so it’s come a long way in just a few months. When Nielsen first started measuring DVR usage in January 2006, DVR penetration was about 8% of households.

In August 2007, research company The Leichtman Group estimated that DVR usage was at 20%.  Shortly after that research news was published, IBM released its own commissioned study that found DVR usage was at–wait for it–24%.

So Nielsen says 20.5%, Leichtman says 20%, IBM says 24%. It’s all pretty close to me. It’s great to have multiple studies and companies come up with numbers that are similar. I like Nielsen’s since it measures actual usage from a panel of actual TV viewers.

Anyway, looks like DVR usage is definitely picking up, but I wonder if it will slow down since there are more options today. For example, I can still watch the latest episodes of Heroes even if my DVR doesn’t record an episode because of conflicts. I can watch it live on TV, with my DVR, via NBC.com, downloading it illegally on BitTorrent, or through NetFlix’s Watch Instantly service. Plus season one of Heroes is still available on iTunes. And Season two should be up on Hulu, whenever that launches.

So as we get more choices for watching TV, people may find that they don’t need DVRs as much as they used to.  As much as I enjoy my DVR, I’m definitely watching TV using these alternate methods.