The sixth annual Communications Market Report has just been released by Ofcom, and reveals just how much the  appetite among consumers is growing for recording broadcast programmes for playback later. Nearly 9 million PVRs have been sold since 2000, helped in large part by the move to digital broadcasting. Here we set out key metrics on the take-up and use of PVR products and identify trends in consumer attitudes towards PVR use.

Key findings:

• More than a quarter of consumers (27%) claimed to use a PVR at the end of March 2009, equivalent to 7 million homes, according to Ofcom research. This rose to nearly a third of consumers (31%) in multichannel television homes.
• These figures are a little lower than those for operator and sales data, which suggest that nearly 9 million PVRs had been sold in the UK at the end of March 2009. The five million Sky+ boxes (launched in September 2001) made up the majority of the UK PVR universe at the end of Q1 2009, followed by Freeview+ and Freesat+ and Top Up TV devices, which together accounted for around 2.6 million devices.
• 15% of viewing across the five main PSB channels in 2008 was of programmes recorded using a PVR, according to data from BARB, the television industry’s audience measurement organisation. In Sky+ homes this rose to 19%.
• Adults aged 16-34 are the group most likely to watch programmes recorded on a PVR; 19% of viewing among this age group was on a recorded basis in 2008 according to BARB, compared to 11% for viewers aged 55 and over.
• High-definition programmes are among those most viewed after their initial broadcast in Sky+ homes, according to viewing data from the SkyView panel. A third of viewing of Drama serials and series in Sky+ homes is recorded.
• 42% of consumers said that they watched a greater variety of programmes since owning a PVR, although a third (33%) disagreed with this. Eighty per cent of consumers believe that they watch more programmes that they enjoy because they have a PVR.
• PVRs are becoming increasingly advanced, offering viewers search functionality and ‘push’ video-on-demand, where programmes are downloaded to the hard disk drive, for example. Hard drives are also increasing in size; some PVRs offer up to 250 hours of recording, up markedly from the 40 hours available on early generations of devices.
• The average retail price of PVRs for the Freeview market had fallen to £106 at the end of March 2009, down from £172 in March 2005, according to GfK sales data. Similarly, the costs of DVRs from the main pay-TV operators have fallen.
• Consumers are using a range of services to ‘catch up’ on television programmes including online catch-up TV and TV-based video-on-demand.

The report shows around a fifth (19 per cent) of viewing in Sky+ homes is timeshifted, more than for subscribers to Virgin Media’s V+ service who timeshifted 12 per cent of viewing; and some 9 per cent of viewing in Freeview PVR homes was time-shifted programmes. Ofcoms research also suggests that PVR owners enjoy a better TV experience, where 8 out of 10 TV viewers with a PVR say that they watched more programmes that they enjoy, and over 40 per cent said that they watched a greater variety of programmes since getting a PVR.

Source: Ofcom August 2009

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