• by Wayne Friedman , December 14, 2010

Television time-shifted viewing is growing this season -- for almost all shows. Brad Adgate, senior vice president and corporate media director for Horizon Media, says throughout the season so far there are 19 shows that witnessed 3 million or more viewers after seven days of time-shifted viewing. By comparison, in 2009, there were 11 shows and in 2008 there were only 3 shows.

Much of this comes from higher penetration of DVR technology in U.S. TV homes -- now at 37.2% in November 2010, according to Nielsen, versus 32.3% in November 2009 and 26.9% in November 2008.

Despite this situation, Adgate says, some programs report a drop in their time-shifted audiences: Fox's "The Cleveland Show" rose to 13.5% -- from 15.3% of its audience coming from time-shifting.

Even CW's "90210" dipped a bit -- 35.3% from 36.0% -- while CW's "Smallville" dropped to 31.5% from 35.8%.

NBC's "The Office" is the most time-shifted program; in terms of its overall percentage, it grabbed 38.8% more viewers -- up to seven days of time-shifting. Overall, NBC comedy was also first in 2009, with 37.5% compared to 29.0% in 2008.

In terms of actual time-shifted viewers, ABC's "Modern Family" had the highest number with 5.465 million; ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" was next at 5.067 million. Both shows topped last year's number for ABC's "House," at 5.038 million.

Among first-year shows, NBC's "The Event" was best in time-shifting -- in terms of percentage -- 34% or 3.083 million viewers. CBS' "Hawaii 5-0" had the most time-shifted viewers overall for a new show -- 3.976 million -- accounting for 27.1% of its total seven days audience.

One of the biggest upward movers was ABC's "Modern Family," which doubled its time-shifted viewership to 5.465 million in 2010, from 2.613 million in 2009. Fox's "Glee" also climbed high -- to 4.8 million from 2.969 million. And CBS' "How I Met Your Mother" doubled its time-shifted viewers over the last two years.

One of the biggest declines was seen with "House," which dropped to 4.148 million in 2010 from 5.038 million in 2009.