• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 17, 2005

ESPN Thursday unveiled the latest findings from an ongoing tracking study of digital video recorder users, and the research suggests that the vast majority of DVR households are relatively new to the technology, and have yet to have their TV viewing behavior substantially altered by it.

About two-thirds of DVR owners got their devices within the past six-months, and 85 percent of them own only one; 15 percent own two, according to the findings, revealed by Artie Bulgrin, senior vice president-research and sales development at ESPN, during a presentation at the Carat Digital Exchange in New York.

While those statistics may not be surprising, Bulgrin said the research also suggests DVRs are actually leading to more family-viewing, as household members gather around the TV set connected to the DVR. He said 68 percent of viewing in DVR households is now done to the TV connected to the DVR. Another key finding is that 60 percent of all viewing in DVR households is done "live," and that a majority of DVR owners still consider live TV viewing to be "the norm."

Another interesting insight is that 30 percent of DVR households regularly use so-called "trick" viewing features such as replay, slow-motion, and pause while watching recorded programming. Bulgrin said there was anecdotal evidence that DVR owners occasionally replay TV commercials they've fast-forwarded through when they capture their attention, but he said ESPN has not specifically looked into how DVR owners might be using trick features to enhance their viewing of TV commercials.

The research, which utilize ethnographic techniques, also divided DVR users into six broad lifestyles that ESPN has coined VALS-like descriptors for:

1 - Almost Real-Time/Short Time Delay.

2 - Same Day/Different Time Shifting.

3 - Weekend Warriors.

4 - Marathoners.

5 - Stockpilers.

6 - The Traveler.