• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, October 1, 2008

New consumer research, from Leichtman Research Group, reports that 27% of TV households in the United States have at least one Digital Video Recorder (DVR), and 30% of those households have more than one DVR, and that 87% of DVR owners would recommend their DVR service to a friend. 81% rate their DVR 8-10 on a 10 point scale (with 45% rating the service as 10).

But recorded viewing is not necessarily the priority in DVR households, says the report, since 68% of DVR owners say that they usually watch recorded DVR programs when there is nothing on regularly scheduled TV that they want to watch. Only 6 percent of TV viewing is now time-shifted, either as a show recorded on a DVR and viewed later or as one seen through a video-on-demand service, says the report.

LRG's research also found that:

• 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 Video on- Demand, 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

The report says that the number of US households with DVRs has essentially doubled in the past two years and, with a continued push from cable, DBS, and Telco TV providers, will likely double again over the next four years. LRG forecasts that DVRs and on-Demand's share of total TV viewing time in the US will increase from about 6% today to 16% at the end of 2012.

In addition, the LRG quarterly study reports that the twenty largest cable and telephone providers in the US, representing about 94% of the market, acquired 887,000 net additional high-speed Internet subscribers in the second quarter of 2008. These top broadband providers now account for 65.1 million subscribers, with cable companies having 35.3 million subscribers, and telephone companies having over 29.7 million subscribers.

Other broadband findings from LRG include:

• The top cable companies added over 670,000 subscribers, representing 76% of the net broadband additions for the quarter versus the top telephone companies
• Overall, broadband additions in 2Q 2008 amounted to 51% of those in 2Q 2007, with cable having 85% as many additions as a year ago, and Telcos 23%
• The top cable broadband providers have a 54% share of the overall market, with a 5.6 million subscriber advantage over the top telephone companies
• The top cable broadband providers have a 54% share of the broadband market, with about a 5.1 million subscriber advantage over the telephone companies

Net broadband additions in the quarter were the fewest of any quarter in the seven years LRG has been tracking the industry. While the the relative number of quarterly broadband adds has peaked, the decline in additions this quarter compared to the same period last year was exacerbated by emphasis on sales of higher speed and bundled services, often at the expense of the traditional DSL service. 

For more information, please visit Leichtman Research Group here.