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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.
"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.
My GF watches lots of TV live - reality TV and sometimes drama
I will almost never watch live, but I'll watch quasi-live. Assuming a show like The Walking Dead will have approximately 16 minutes of ads, I'll start playing the recording as the show is still recording. So I'll start watching 15-20 minutes after the show has started, skip the commercials throughout and I'll finish watching just as it finishes the broadcast.
I love how those ads feature women who could probably turn a 90-year-old guy's wang into a hat rack without chemical assistance.
#DeleteChrome
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.
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
Er...NASCAR is a commercial: essentially its racing billboards for national brands.
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!
You want to be behind so you can skip the commercials!
And you typically don't want to be caught watching a game that has already been decided.
Oh no, the horror! Wait, what? I think most people don't want to know the final score till they've seen the game, but I've never met anyone who "didn't want to be caught" watching a completed game. What kind of bizarre personal insecurities cause that? Watching the game on delay has been popular since the VCR appeared, never mind the DVR. (And with the VCR, you had to wait till the game finished before you could start watching.)
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'".
Exactly. I start watching NFL at (what is supposed to be) half-time. By skipping the ads and timeouts, I catch up to live in the last couple of minutes of the 4th quarter. Also, if I start watching it at half time, I'm well into my 'bubble' so nobody can spoil the game for me.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
According to this Wall Street Journal article there's about 11 minutes of action in a football game so it's even worse than you think.