ESPN: Late Adopters Don't Want DVRs, Return Them

by Joe Mandese, May 23, 2005, 7:00 AM

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Digital video recorders may be increasing the anxiety level on Madison Avenue, but new research released Sunday suggests that DVRs, in fact, may not be for everybody. The research--presented by Ed Gordon, director of local and affiliate research at ESPN, during the opening session of the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau's local sales management conference in Chicago--found that nearly 57 percent of households that participated in a test ultimately returned their DVRs because they did not want them.

The study, which was conducted between February and August 2004 by Horowitz Associates for ESPN, was designed to reveal what the impact of DVRs would be when given to "non-early adopters." The study was intended to determine how DVRs influence viewing behavior and exposure to advertising among the later adopters who were given DVRs as part of the test. As it turns out, many didn't even want the devices. Of the 157 households that participated in the test, 90 returned their DVRs for a variety or reasons including: complaints about the installation process, the cost of DVRs, or the fact that the digital set-top devices clashed with or didn't fit into their home furnishings.

Among those who opted to keep their DVRs, Gordon said there was an indication that they continued to view TV commercials, even during fast-forward mode.

Gordon said ESPN has gone into the field with a more robust study of 1,000 cable and satellite TV DVR households in an attempt to "quantify motivation" for DVR use and ad avoidance, and to measure the use of so-called "trick" features such as replay, slow-motion, and fast-forward by type of DVR.

ESPN DVR Study Sample

  
              Recruited For Test    Returned DVR  
Cable DVR                    117              67  
TiVo                          40              23  
  
Total                        157              90  

Source: ESPN

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