Counter-intuitive lesson of the day – DVRs don’t hurt live TV viewership: I hesitate to point to this, knowing what a challenge interpreting statistics can be to certain reporters and readers, however according to this report: “It seems that DVR playback is adding significant audiences to some shows, but does not appear to be affecting the level of live viewing overall.” In other words, all the free previewing on the Web and use of TiVos and DVRs and iTunes downloading, BitTorrent, YouTube, etc., does not appear to be affecting the number of people who view TV shows at the time they are aired. This makes complete sense to me as I now watch network TV shows exclusively through time-shifted methods. However, as I had gone about two decades without watching prime time TV, I am not a viewer network TV lost due to such technologies — but one they have gained.
