Most DVR Owners Are Recording Live Sports, Survey Says (cnet.com)

A new survey by Thuurz Sports, a company that works with TV providers to increase the size of sports viewing audiences, finds that 84.1 percent of DVR owners record live sports, many of them as a "backup" for when they might miss the end (or the beginning) or the game, and a majority (58 percent) to skip the ads. From a report on CNET: "Over the past decade, DVR viewing has undermined certain elements of the TV business. Reacting to this threat, sports TV executives have rightly focused on the genre's relative strength, calling sports programming 'DVR-proof'," says Brian Ring, the consultant who created the survey for Thuuz, in the press release. "Sports are best viewed live, but this survey highlights the fact that most fans with DVRs regularly use. Most TV shows and movies these days are available on-demand from various sources, but live events, particularly sports, are considered among the most "DVR-proof" since there's more value in seeing the result live.

Comments

The survey between the commercials.

[geekmux]

"Sports are best viewed live..."

"...live events, particularly sports, are considered among the most "DVR-proof" since there's more value in seeing the result live."

Oh really? What this survey actually highlights is just how much we all fucking hate commercials, no matter what is on TV.

Here's hoping the bullshit valuation driving obscene commercial costs shrinks to where it should be.

Yes, I do.

[bfwebster]

I DVR virtually any sports event I'm interested in. If I'm watching "live", it lets me pause the game for whatever reason, then skip over ads until I catch up again. If I'm not that invested in the game, or if I have other things interfering with seeing it live, I'll record it, see what the final score is, then decide whether I want to actually watch it. The upside is that I can skip thru ads.

Delayed start, live end

[Aqualung812]

I've not had a DVR for a couple of years now, but when I did, I would take a rough guess to start anywhere from 30-90 minutes late on the broadcast of whatever sportsball or racing I was watching.

The goal was to skip every commercial, yet still end up live for the last 30-10 minutes.

No spoiled results, and very few commercials in the last bit. Worked great.

I also did with with shows with big reveals and lots of live views, like The Walking Dead. Those are a predictable 10 minute delay to catch up to live by the last commercial break.

Re: They just need to ad more advertisements

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Er...NASCAR is a commercial: essentially its racing billboards for national brands.

Same credibility as a **IA-paid report

[DCFusor]

Really, this should be obvious. Outfit that sells stuff pays for a report that says they're being ripped off - likely inflated numbers - as a background to get legislation to tax DVR owners or whatever other skim they can easy-street or litigate from. "Look, we lose x-zillion bucks from every recorder". Sound familiar? Remember the "tax" on blank CD's and so forth, since "they can only be used to pirate"? This is how the big boys operate, we should have learned long ago.

Can't watch sport any more because of the news

[GreatDrok]

I used to watch a fair bit of F1 but since it is a global series the times are all over the place. Generally it was OK and I would make a point of getting up early to see a race in Australia or somewhere but that gets harder as I get older so I've relied on my TiVo to record races and watch them when I'm awake. The trouble is, the sports news on the radio always blabs the outcome. I don't see why since anyone who cares will have watched or will want to watch on their DVR, and everyone else doesn't need to know but the radio news, or the TV news both insist on dumping the result out there and it is difficult to impossible to avoid. Now I don't even bother to DVR the race and I've given up following it. I cancelled my SkyTV subscription since I didn't need sport any more too so I'm a lost viewer because of the news orgs, often owned by the same companies complaining that viewership of the sports is down. How about a dedicated sports news channel and then a 1 day moratorium on the news on regular outlets. If I want the sports news I can seek it out, but if I don't I can avoid it. Doubt that's going to happen though.