How DVRs are changing primetime

under 60 percent of adults 18-49 use a television set during the 8 p.m. hour, but an increasingly smaller percentage of them are using that TV set to watch live television. That’s one of the findings from a new study by GfK Custom Research, which examines how technology is changing primetime viewing patterns. The study finds that the percentage of those watching DVR playback at 8 has gone from 17 percent eight years ago to 26 percent today. Watching a program or movie using a streaming video has increased from 0 to 7 percent, while playing video games rose slightly, from 6 percent to 8 percent. Among Generation Y respondents, a full 43 percent of those using TV sets at 8 p.m. are watching something other than live television. The changes come as new media devices suck up an increasing amount of people’s time, with online and mobile combined now almost equaling time with television. David Tice, senior vice president of media at GfK Custom Research, talks to Media Life about how primetime viewing habits are shifting, what media buyers need to know about the changes, and how viewers find out about new shows.

What did you find most surprising or most interesting about this study?

Maybe most interesting was that, despite the big changes in TV and media over the past eight years, people’s behavior and attitudes towards primetime really didn’t change all that much.

What's the most important thing that media buyers and planners can take from it?

The big change we saw was the use of what we call "playback" viewing–DVRs, video on demand, DVDs and streaming.

Among these 18-49s, over a third (36 percent) in 2012 reported their TV use in the first hour of primetime was playback, compared to about 22 percent in 2004 or 2008. This affects how well agencies can count on their media plan actually [being] seen when they intended it to be.