DVR a 'frienemy' of television programs
Time-shifting helps some shows survive but hinders others from getting established.
Figuring out a prime-time schedule is usually one of CW Entertainment President Dawn Ostroff's most important duties. Never, however, has it seemed to matter less.
The promise inherent in digital video recorders -- that viewers can be in control of their own TV schedules -- is rapidly being fulfilled this fall, and the business is changing around it. Nearly 30% of the nation's homes with TVs have at least one.
Nowhere is the effect more apparent than at the CW, where the practice of recording the shows and watching them later accounts for nearly 17% of the network's viewership over a one-week period.
Two years ago, it was less than 5%, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The time-shifting is more dramatic for individual shows. The CW even had a week where the audience of 18- to 34-year-old women for "90210" increased a stunning 79% over the live broadcast.
Viewing for ABC, CBS and NBC programs are all more than 10% time-shifted now too. Fox's programming is only 8% time-shifted this fall, in large part because it has shown postseason baseball, which very few people watch later.
"More and more people are changing the way they consume television," said Alan Wurtzel, NBC's chief research executive. "In the next few years, we will rewrite all the rules."
The most time-shifted show is NBC's "The Office," where 28% of its audience watched it sometime other than Thursdays at 9 p.m, Nielsen said. Action shows and serialized dramas, such as "Fringe," "Heroes" and "Grey's Anatomy," have big time-shifted audiences. Not surprisingly, young people are the quickest to adapt to new technology.
Among the least time-shifted shows this fall were "Deal or No Deal," "60 Minutes" and "King of the Hill."
With "The Office," time-shifting has kept alive a show that might otherwise be dead. The comedy has the week's toughest time slot, competing directly against CBS' more popular "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and ABC's "Grey's Anatomy."
The flip side is that DVRs make it harder for new shows such as NBC's just-canceled "My Own Worst Enemy" to get established. Given the choice of trying something new or watching a recorded version of a favorite show, the DVR usually wins out.
"I call the DVR our 'frienemy,' " Wurtzel said.
Time-shifting has played a prominent part in the decline of the 10 p.m. time slot, where a powerhouse like NBC's "ER" ruled television not too long ago.
