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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.
My GF watches lots of TV live - reality TV and sometimes drama. If she watches it late, then the results have been spoiled on twitter/FB etc.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
"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.
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.
I never quite understood this. I don't deny that it is true for many people but it doesn't make sense to me personally. Knowing the outcome in advance doesn't make an event more or less enjoyable for me. In fact in some cases it make it less pleasant if I actually care about the outcome. (I don't enjoy being nervous) I'd actually rather know in advance which are the good games worth watching most of the time. When I watch sports I watch to admire the beauty of the game. I'm interested in the techniques and tactics and strategies. Knowing the outcome just makes it like watching a movie like Titanic where I know the outcome but the interesting bit is how they got there.
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.
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
The "DVR-proof" argument seems backwards to me. The biggest value in seeing the game live is that the window for watching it after the fact is severely limited at best, if it exists at all. Nobody plays World Series reruns. If I'm busy during the game and I don't DVR it, I can't watch it. Outside of network news coverage, it is the only thing on TV that I can't eventually catch later. It's like "Sports are best viewed live" is a command, not an observation.
... is to be able to fast forward through "instant replay". So you can watch a football game in the same time it took in 1970, or a baseball game in 2000.
They don't want to explain the issue with a four hour erection in the middle of a game. I'm in that boat.
I record every "live" show I intend to watch and start watching it late, sportsd or reality TV... doesn't matter. Because of all of the commercials and wasted time, I generally catch up to the live event just before the end of it anyway. Nothing spoiled, time gained. Takes me about 20 minutes to watch an entire 3 hour football broadcast without missing a single play (you can easily start after halftime). It takes maybe 30 minutes to watch a full baseball game. Sports are not remotely "DVR proof". No one actually thinks or believes that. What they actually are is "cord cutter" proof, because you can't legally view them through any other service.
The problem with DVRs is if you keep pausing something live eventually you end up so far behind the feed the rest of the time you're just struggling to keep up with it. And you typically don't want to be caught watching a game that has already been decided. Then after the game you have to deal with the hundreds of shows saved on the drive that you feel so obligated to watch to the point where watching TV starts to feel like a chore. I haven't used a DVR in a couple years and don't miss it.
Were they vcr proof? Because, since commercial skipping was stripped out, there is no difference with regard to how a dvr impacts advertising. There were actually even devices that could skip commercials with similar effect to what has been ripped out on a vcr recording but they were never common.
Wider availability, can't DVR anything, can't block ads, but most everyone will watch anyway. Boosh.
NASCAR has commercials? Hmm, must happen during the times when I fast forward between restarts.
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.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
There have been years where neither team in the Super Bowl interested either me or my wife and we recorded it to fast forward through the game to watch the commercials. Of course now days most of the commercials are released, or leak, on the internet well before the game.
It seems all these DVRs require subscription and be tied to the internet. OK so I haven't surveyed the market, I don't subscribe to comcast DVR or Tivo as they all seem tied to the internet. My current DVR is the Panasonic DMR-E85H that functions just like the old school VHS but it has a harddrive, just press the button and it starts recording. It has a timer to set when I want to record (there's always some show or movie that plays during times when I'm at work or in bed). If I want to save it, then I can make a DVD. No, I don't pirate movies but I want to save them myself in case I want to watch again (and be able to use a different player), i.e. when TCM showed a bunch of Mamie Van Doren movies which they will never show again. However, it is NTSC analog and I have to set the cable box for specific channel.
It seems the Panasonic DMR-E85H (and the 75) was only on the market for a couple years then yanked probably because MAFIAA considers piracy a bigger problem than climate change, frugal economy, and terrorism. But wait! Aussie Panasonic has the DMR-BWT460GN, oooooo, looks real nice too. It's just like the SD models but this has huge HDD and Bluray. AC power is 220, USB to save files to external HDD and there is a RJ45 LAN jack to connect to a broadband router and get on the internet. It lists HDD info as recordable contents include mp4 and MPEG2. This beast covers every country except North America!
But then anything nowadays to record? Not often are old movies played on TV, outfits like TCM tend to show the same movies over and over (rare exceptions like the MVD movies). So is there anything worthwhile to record? For me I have no interest in football, Kardashians, etc. There is PBS, and on weekends CSPAN3 has interesting history programs. Late last night on CSPAN3 a program (I recorded it with my DMR-E85H) by Frank Capra made during WWII portrays Japan determined to rule the world through military conquest.
mfwright@batnet.com
I'm surprised it's that high.
Certainly 84% of people don't watch sports. Only about 1/3 of the US even watches the Super Bowl and I'm guessing that's the most viewed sporting event in the US.
If accurate what this says to me is that sports viewers are more likely to have DVRs.
I don't even own a DVR. I do own a TV, but everything I watch is streamed over the internet or is on a hard drive, blu-ray or DVD in my home.
I have very little interest in watching sports. I don't mind watching a few highlights if there was a particularly good or interesting play but I'm not going to tune in to a game to wait for them to happen. I see no need for a DVR.
I watch a couple of sporting events a week, almost exclusively via DVR. Why? I'm busy with a toddler, job, etc. I'm busy enough that I probably haven't seen the score yet, bit, even when I have, I often want to understand how (or watch awesome plays).
So how do you monetize me? How about not stopping so regularly for such long ad breaks? Right now, my ad viewership in these recorded games is zero. I blow right by ads via a DVR. But, if it was a 30 second ad here or there, I'd just sit back and tolerate it.
Er...NASCAR is a commercial: essentially its racing billboards for national brands.
It is just because no one wants to miss the next half-time wardrobe malfunction. That, and fans want to be able to replay scenes that get passed over due to the pace of the game, or fast-forward the ones that take forever for no reason.
DVR time shifting doesn't have to be for the purpose of watching hours later. It may be just to shift a few minutes forwards or back.
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.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
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.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
The NFL offers a service that allows you to watch a football game in about 45 minutes, rather than the three hours it takes when viewed live. 45 minutes is about the amount of time they're actually playing, the rest is between downs, mostly with the clock stopped.
For the same reason, football is the show I MOST prefer to DVR. My old DVR had a "fast forward twelve seconds" button. I'd watch a play, then click the button to get to the next play. I could watch the whole game in under an hour, without missing any plays.
I don't have time to watch an entire NFL Football game which is usually around 4 hours, but have found that if I DVR the game, I can skip through the commercials, time between plays, half time, etc. and view every play in just over an hour.
[4, 15 minute quarters = 60 minutes, + a few minutes for mistakes, replays of great plays, etc.]
I used to tape hockey games pretty religiously and then take the time to watch them sans commercials even if I knew the outcome. Just enjoyed watching an hour and twenty minutes (when you take out commercials and the in between period crap) of hockey for relaxation. If there was a team in Toronto where you could count on seeing a reasonably good game again, I'd probably start doing it again.
I suspect that if you are a pretty die-hard fan of a sport (regardless of which sport) you'd do the same thing.
The best response for the leagues/associations/etc. to this would be to try and broadcast their games without commercial breaks but use the scrawl more effectively while not being annoying to get ad revenue.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
84% sounded fairly high to me as well. This would make me assume that most people who purchase and use DVRs are sports fans. This would be the opposite of "calling sports programming 'DVR-proof'".
DVRs are great for American football and baseball. Considering there is approximately 15 minutes of actual gametime/action in a 3-4 hour baseball or football game, that's a lot of time that you can get back. A football fan spends more time watching replays than the actual game. With a DVR, you can choose to watch the replays or skip 'em.
... I think we can all agree that the main attractive thing about watching any sport 'live' is if you're watching with a group. There's the whole socialization aspect of it that doesn't work with DVRs (outside of a quick replay). Any dead time can be spent talking about what you just saw and sharing the agony or euphoria. If you're watching alone: skip skip skip to the good bits, no one will complain!
'Real' football (ducks for cover), or Soccer, is more continuous, so it is more difficult to skip. It has around 60 minutes of gametime/action in a 2 hour broadcast, but I still DVR the matches. I'll start them a little late and then skip over halftime and the talk. I'll catch up to the 'live' game by the time the game is up. Sometimes I don't have time to watch the entire game, so I'll just skip around to watch the goals. If I do have time, I cannot properly watch 2 games at once, so one game gets DVR'd.
Sport preferences aside
For those in disbelief about the gametimes, google is your friend. Not intending to slam football/baseball.
TFA says 84% of sports fans with a DVR...
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I don't watch any sports, and I certainly don't record any, either.
Football is miserable now because they skip out to a commercial every possible second they can. Touchdown -> Commercial -> Kickoff --> Commercial --> Start next drive. Forget it.
TV shows are bad too. I've been ripping my favorite shows to MKV files, and the folder details show the the lengths. An older 30 minute show like family guy in season 1 is 22-24min. An episode of big bang theory season 9? Freakin 18-20 minutes! MacGyver season 1? 48 minutes. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D? 41-43 MINUTES!
To say you are watching games for strategy and tactics seems odd unless you are a coach.
I am a coach. I've been one for over 25 years. I'm a very competitive peson but unless it is a team I am coaching or someone I have a personal relationship with involved in the event I don't really get emotionally invested in the outcomes of most sporting events. Not knowing the outcome of a match doesn't increase my enjoyment of it. Sure I'd like to see the home team win and all that but if they don't I rarely am bothered by it unless I'm a participant in the event. Maybe this is because I'm originally from Cleveland and if you are from that city and get too invested in the local teams you are on a one way train to disappointment (Cavaliers this year notwithstanding). The real beauty in sports is in the execution of them and understanding how it happens. People that really understand them appreciate this beauty very much like a mathematician appreciates an elegant proof. Outsiders really can't fully understand though they often appreciate the sport for less subtle reasons.
My point is that even the best coaches will admit that sports games are extremely simple.
Not true at all. Actually they are often ludicrously complex. Saying that sports are simple clearly marks you as an outsider who doesn't fully comprehend what is going on. Most coaches will tell you that few people really appreciate the full depth and complexity of most sports. I know that is very much true in my chosen sport (wrestling) where it takes years for most people to be able to execute even relatively basic techniques with any real proficiency. I've been doing my sport for over 35 years and I'm still learning new things all the time. Simple? No. Not at all.
Hardly anyone would enjoy gambling if you just put your $250 dollars in a hole and it said "you lost/won XYZ... if you would like to see how you got there, please proceed to play".
There is a HUGE difference between watching someone else play and playing yourself. You are conflating the two. I get how knowing the outcome for an event you are participating in would ruin things. But why should I care whether or not I know the outcome of an event that I am a spectator for? It's fine if I don't know the outcome in advance but I get just as much enjoyment watching the game when I do know who won. And if I don't care how the game unfolded (whether or not I know the ultimate outcome) then it raises the question why I'm bothering to watch in the first place? Might as well just fast forward to the end and see the exciting conclusion if you don't care how it happens.
Certainly 84% of people don't watch sports.
You have that statistic quite wrong.
Only about 1/3 of the US even watches the Super Bowl and I'm guessing that's the most viewed sporting event in the US.
Why should that be surprising? Football is a popular sport in the US but not universally so. For example most of my family a good number of my friends couldn't give a mouse fart about football. We like sports but we like OTHER sports. As a spectator I find Rugby Sevens to be considerably more entertaining if we are comparing similar sports. I have sports I like watching and playing. Football just isn't among them. Some like basketball. Some like soccer. American football is just one option among many.
I used to tape hockey games pretty religiously. . . If there was a team in Toronto where you could count on seeing a reasonably good game again, I'd probably start doing it again.
I call shenanigans! The last good pro team in Toronto was in 1967. VCRs weren't popular until at least the mid 1970s.
Once the final score is known is there much point to watching?
If all you care about is the score then why are you bothering to watch at all? You have that argument backwards. I watch sports because I like seeing how things unfold. I like seeing the grace of movement, the tactics and strategy, the choices and mistakes, the effort and hustle, etc. That is FAR more interesting than the final score which is merely the summary of what happened. None of that is diminished in any way by knowing (or not) the ultimate outcome of the contest.
Isn't it like watching a murder mystery after someone tells you whodunnit?
Not at all. You can appreciate a dance for the pure aesthetics of it even if you've seen it before. Do you ever watch a movie you've seen previously? How about eating a meal you've previously enjoyed? If you want to make it all about keeping the final outcome a mystery you're going to miss a lot of interesting stuff along the way.
45 minutes is about the amount of time they're actually playing, the rest is between downs, mostly with the clock stopped.
The actual amount of time spent actually playing a game of football is around 10 minutes per game. Somebody did a study about that a while back. The rest of it is just standing around and people shuffling back and forth. It's actually a really slow paced game where not much happens most of the time.
There were some good games in the '80s with Borje Salming, Tiger Williams, Mike Palmateer, Lanny McDonald, Rick Vaive.
They never did well in the playoffs but in the regular season there were more than enough good games to watch from the VCR.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Here is an app idea for you. Viewers watching a sports event push a "Wow!" button whenever there is something interesting happening in the game. These are the "producers". A "consumer" records a number of sports events and the playback device (a PC) shows only the interesting parts. You can now watch a lot of games simultaneously! (And of course skipping the commercials. Remember Carl Sagan's Adnix?) /Jon
"Football is a simple game that is made complicated by the players" Sir Alex Ferguson.
That's not a quote about the game being simple. It's a comment about the players making mistakes and thereby needlessly complicating things.
Professional sports teams have vast libraries of tape, full time employees to analyze strategy and tactics, statistical analysts breaking down performance, nutritionists, psychologists, strength coaches, not to mention the coaching staff. And you think these games are simple? A glib statement about a game being simple doesn't actually make it simple. If it actually was simple Sir Alex Ferguson wouldn't be paid huge sums of money to coach.
Think of it a bit like chess. You can learn the basic rules and strategies of the game in a few minutes but it takes a lifetime to master it and it is anything but simple once you understand the full depth of the game being played.
TIVO brought that feature back for some shows.