• by Mike Bloxham , Op-Ed Contributor, January 3, 2007

Pretty much regardless of which estimates you go with, it seems likely that this year's Olympic Games in Beijing will be the first to be broadcast at a time when a decent number of households have grown used to (if not addicted to) their DVRs.

And although the latest figures from Nielsen show that sports programming doesn't loom large in the habits of the nation's time-shifters, a number of factors suggest that perhaps these Olympics will buck the trend.

One of these is the basic growth of device ownership. As household penetration figures continue to rise (and indications are that it was a good holiday season for the DVR) it seems logical that the number of sports fans who wish to enjoy the replay or commercial-free(-ish) opportunities that come with a DVR will also rise--even if not as a percentage, then as an absolute number. It's not unknown for viewers to watch sports events around 20 minutes after the start of an event in order to allow for fast-forwarding to happen without catching up with live programming.

This sometimes takes the form of social viewing with friends, cocooned from outside information sources that will give away the final score before it is revealed in "almost real-time." While it seems logical to expect this kind of behavior to be more common with major team sports, it may be that some of the Olympic events will stimulate similar behavior.

Niche interest is also a factor that may play a part in Olympics-related DVR use. While many of the sports in the event do not in themselves command massive followings or generate spectacular ratings outside the Olympics, devotees of those particular sports may find that their DVR is the most convenient way to keep up with their particular passion, which may well be scheduled at inconvenient times (cycling, the marathon, swimming etc.). Although the Winter Olympics creates its own excitement, if you're not into winter sports, your interest will be less intense. Even if many of the sports in the Summer Olympics attract small audiences, the sheer range of sports included is likely to present a larger potential audience. And for many of those audiences, this is one of the few times when "their" sport gets coverage.

And the impact of the Games' Chinese location on when the events take place may also in itself give rise to an uplift in time-shifted viewing. Obviously this can be expected to play well for the Web also, and we can expect plenty of workplace consumption of Olympics-related video. It would be interesting to tally the TV and Web audiences for the event once it's over.

Of course, only time will tell if any of this hypothesis holds true and to what extent, as this really is the first time we've had a Summer Olympics (and arguably even a Winter Olympics) since DVRs started to gain a meaningful presence in the marketplace. But it will be extremely interesting to see how far the DVR impacts advertising and sponsorship effectiveness around the Olympics in terms of recall, etc. It will also be interesting to see what DVR-friendly initiatives are put in place to capitalize on the time-shifting that does go on--such as offering relevant and targeted content and incentives for DVR-owners interested in Olympic programming.

Of course that will require some people to adjust their mindset to accept that the DVR can actually be their friend--if they see it as a means of leveraging viewers' interest in the content outside of the ad break, but also free of the constraints that come with program integration.

The Summer Olympics happens but once every four years, and hopefully we'll see some creative experimentation around the opportunities it provides this year, rather than having to wait until next time off the starting blocks.