Half of US homes to have a DVR by 2011

Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007 by MegaZone

The E-Commerce Times is running an article on the growth of DVR use in the US. According to Leichtman Research Group (LRG), just two years ago DVRs were in only 1 of 13 US homes, today 1 in 5 homes have a DVR, and by 2011 they predict that 50% of homes, or 60 million, will have a DVR. This is due largely to the proliferation from cable and satellite providers who are shifting DVRs from options to nearly standard equipment.

LRG also reported a couple of things that were a little surprising to me. They determined that 45% of DVR households record only five or fewer programs a week, and that 95% of TV viewing in the US is still live TV. I would’ve expected homes with DVRs to record more content, and even with DVRs in just 20% of homes I expected more time-shifting – 100% of my viewing is time-shifted with TiVo. And they look forward to potential future developments such as a network-based DVR.

About MegaZone

MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
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  • MickeS

    These DVRs are probably for the most part not much more than cable boxes with some DVR functions thrown in, like my SARA-driven SA8300HD was. They are cable boxes where you can record shows, whereas TiVo is a recorder that you can watch live TV through. I’m not surprised that the actual DVR use on these units is low – like it says in the article, this is not a demand-driven market; many who have the cable DVRs probably never even record anything on them.

  • Brian Purcell

    I concur with MickeS. I was just down in San Diego and I crashed with two friends over two nights. Both friends had cable DVR’s, but neither of them used them for that much. One even called her box a TiVo, eventhough it clearly wasn’t. The other friend’s DVR had a LOUD whirring sound and just assumed that all DVR’s did that. I don’t think I was successful in convincing them of the superiority of TiVo boxes.