• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 16, 2006

The growing penetration of digital video recorders do not appear to be impacting the "live" ratings of the major broadcast networks' prime-time schedules, and may be helping to attract bigger audiences for the most popular shows. That's the conclusion of an analysis of the first week of DVR playback data distributed Friday by Havas media shop MPG.

"Live viewing to the four major networks has remained virtually unchanged compared to premiere week last year," MPG found, noting that the impact of DVRS so far appears to be an incremental one: "It seems that DVR playback is adding significant audiences to some shows, but does not appear to be affecting the level of live viewing overall."

DVR playback contributed adult 18- to -49-year-old audience gains of 0.2 and 0.3 Nielsen rating points for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, though MPG said the growth may be due to the fact that Nielsen's sample has become more representative of DVR homes. About 8 percent of Nielsen sample currently has DVRs, and the TV researcher plans bring that to between 12 percent and 13 percent by the end of the year.

"It appears that viewed live - for the 4 nets - has not suffered," said Joseph Abruzzo, executive vice president-director of research at MPG. "DVRs are allowing an expansion of viewing."

The finding supports predictions by network research executives that DVRs would not hurt, but would actually boost top-rated shows and networks, by creating secondary sampling opportunities for programs that normally would suffer due to scheduling conflicts.

Among individual programs, for example, the top-rated show for the first week of the new season, ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," was also the No. 1 show in terms of DVR playback, gaining a full rating point among adults 18 to 49 and among adults 25 to 54.

"NBC's "My Name is Earl" and "The Office," with at least 0.5 gains among both targets, exhibited the greatest percentage increases: +16 percent among A25-54; +15 percent among A18-49, respectively," MPG found.

Rankings of the Top 20 programs remained the same, with or without DVR playback, but at least 45 percent of all series changed positions in the "live" plus seven days of playback rankings.

As expected, live events and reality shows such as ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and NBC's "Sunday Night Football" and "Deal or No Deal," received little boost from DVR playback. In fact, NBC's "Deal or No Deal" fell four spots among in the adult 18 to 49 rankings after DVR usage was factored back in, the most of any examined series.