DVR use does/doesn't boost viewing hours
Since a fairly standard line in the DVR debate centers around the usually assumed idea that DVR users are watching more TV, therefore making up for those ads they're skipping, some new analysis by Mediamark Research has come out with a surprisingly opposite result. Mediamark's numbers state that 20 percent of adults watch 44.5 hours or more of TV per week, while only 15.7 of DVR owners watch that much boob tube. The numbers come from in-home interviews of 26,000 adults from March '05 to March '06, but the broadcast networks aren't buying it. David Poltrack of CBS said that interviewees often under report TV watching, and that the research by Arbitron that is usually cited -- which conveniently points to more viewing and therefore more ad dollars -- is machine-recorded, and therefore more reliable. We're kind of on the fence here, since we ourselves have been known to lie about our TV viewing habits during an embarrassing Veronica Mars kick last year, but the fact that Arbitron's research comes from 2,000 households in Houston during the Sprint of 2005 doesn't really incite confidence. Perhaps we'll just wait for TiVo to shed some light on the subject.
[Thanks, David]
