MediaDailyNews is reporting that:
At nearly 40%, the San Diego market has the country's highest percentage of DVR homes--27% of all U.S. households now have the ad-skipping devices. The data from Nielsen also shows that 29 markets have DVR penetration rates topping 30%.
Among San Diego's 1.1 million homes, 38% have the ad-skipping devices. That's just above the 37% in Austin, Dallas and Orlando. Nationally, as of this month, there are 31 million DVR homes--up 12% since July.
It is interesting to note that San Diego has the highest household DVR penetration rate, and the article mentions that rates across Southern California are high. More significant to me is the increase in the total US DVR population to 31 million HHs, up from 28 million HHs in July. 3 million households added in 3 months is definitely an acceleration of the pace of growth in DVR adoption. It will be interesting to see if it continues.
I haven't seen an original copy of the Nielsen DVR report, but will look for it. In the meantime here are some tidbits of data from the MediaDailyNews article.
| Market | DVR penetration | DVR homes |
| San Diego | 38% | 402,000 |
| Austin | 37% | 250,000 |
| Dallas | 37% | 927,000 |
| Orlando | 37% | |
| Los Angeles | 36% | 2,052,000 |
| New York | 30% | |
| Philadelphia | 23% | 688,000 |
| Waco, TX | >28% | 102,000 |
| Fort Smith, AR | 31% |
i wonder how the projections are updated. Are they constantly running surveys against the cable/sat companies and DVR hardware companies, or just looking at DVR growth within the existing panel? I’m guessing the latter and I’d wonder about the “Hey, I’m a Nielsen family, I *neeeed* a DVR” skewing.
I was wondering similar questions myself, Mr. Seidman. Are these DVR projections based on actual cable/satellite subscription rates, DVR hardware sales figures, or other non-panel data? Or, are these figures calcluated based on Nielsen households?
Your skew factor is one possibility; could the opposite be true too? If these numbers are calculated based on growth within the Nielsen panel, and if the Nielsen panel is less technologically inclined than the general population, then would DVR’s be growing at an even faster rate than Nielsen measures here?
I don’t mean anything negative regarding less tech-inclined Nielsen families, BTW. That’s just a guess based on something I read a while ago: the Nielsen panel has a higher over-the-air-only (no cable/satellite) percentage than the general population. That may not be true anymore?
Now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder how much of this DVR growth, if any, is related to the DTV conversion? Are people/Nielsen families springing for cable/satellite instead of getting those digital converter boxes? The cable/sat companies are likely pushing one-year promo deals to get new subscribers to buy into higher-end DVR packages.