For the first time, U.S. households with the Netflix video-streaming service outnumber those that own a digital video recorder (DVR), a dramatic rise from just five years ago, according to new data.
The data, released by the Leichtman Research Group, a New Hampshire firm that tracks trends in the home entertainment industry, shows that about 54 percent of adults have Netflix in their household, compared to 53 percent who have a DVR, Variety magazine reported Monday.
By comparison, in 2011, 44 percent of TV households had a DVR and 28 percent had Netflix, the firm said.
Variety observed that Netflix’s rise is all the more remarkable given that DVR has been around as a viewing option since 1999 with the advent of TiVo, while Netflix’s video-streaming service turns 10 this year.
Of course in the past decade or so, many TV networks and cable providers have expanded their video-on-demand (VOD) offerings, in what has been reported as a strategy to undercut DVR use and recover advertising revenue. Many VOD offerings via cable providers or over-the-top services such as Apple TV include advertising which cannot be fast-forwarded.
That said, VOD and streaming services may not prove to be a DVR killer, much less a traditional TV-viewing killer, anytime soon.
LRG’s study found that 64 percent of pay-TV subscribers have DVR while only 58 percent of pay-TV subscribers say they use VOD at least once a month, and 46 percent of adults confess they still pick up the flicker and channel surf to find something to watch.
• Ken Shepherd can be reached at kshepherd@washingtontimes.com.
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