• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, November 9, 2007

Households with digital video recorders are watching fewer of the shows they record within the same day they are recorded, according to new data released this week by Nielsen Media Research. The shift isn't huge - a decline of less than two percentage points over the past year - but it could signal trouble for time sensitive advertisers who depend on having their TV commercial viewed close to the time they are aired.

The finding, which is part of an update on local DVR time-shifting, shows that the percentage of DVR playback occurring within the same day shows were recorded fell to 62.1% in May 2007 vs. 63.5% a year earlier.

The impact on overall TV viewing remained low, because DVRs are only in about 20% of U.S. TV households, and because people in DVR households still watch most of their programming live. According to the new Nielsen report, the percentage of viewing done live in those households was 91.5% in May 2007, a slight increase from 91.2% in May 2006. But it is the time-shifting behavior that is likely to spark the most interest on Madison Avenue.

The report also indicates there are some significant disparities among the nation's 200 plus media markets in terms of DVR penetration. Big Texas markets Austin and Dallas/Ft. Worth had the highest penetration levels: 28.5% and 26.5%, respectively, while Los Angeles, the nation's second largest media market, and the bastion of the writer's strike-ridden Hollywood entertainment community, is at 25.9%.

Conversely, New York, the nation's largest media market, and the symbolic home of the advertising industry, actually indexed well below the national average, with a DVR penetration of 18.3%.

The lowest DVR penetration - 4.0% - currently is in Glendive, Montana, the nation's 210th media market.