In the News

MediaWeek undertaking serious series on DVR viewer behavior:

How Do You TiVo?

Eight short years ago, when TiVo and ReplayTV came to market, both Madison Avenue and “Joe Consumer” needed the value proposition explained to them and proved. Today, while the industry still works to get the value out of the proposition, consumers are clearly onboard and enthusiastic.

 

An article titled after my own heart:

Revision3 Shows: Soon to be Seen by Hardly Anyone On Multiple Platforms

San Francisco-based Revision3 which produces more than a dozen Web video series has inked multiple distribution deals in the past two weeks including deals with Joost, TiVo and Hulu according to a story on MediaWeek.

 

 COVER STORY: Girl Power!

SIDEBAR: Co-Viewing: No More Fights Over the Remote

With a full 20% of homes now owning a digital-video recorder, a strange thing is happening in the living room: More couples are watching TV together, and fewer are fighting over the remote control. Nielsen senior VP of planning policy and analysis Pat McDonough suggested that co-viewing may be gradually reversing a long-running fragmentation trend.

“It’s like appointment TV; when people play back later, they’re together,” she said. McDonough added that if she’s watching her favorite shows, like Desperate Housewives, live, she’s much more likely to be watching them alone.

TiVo’s Todd Juenger, VP of audience research, backed up the argument that co-viewing is on the rise as a result of time shifting. “In the halls here, we joke about how many marriages TiVo has saved … You used to have to fight over what to watch. You still have to choose who watches first, but you don’t have to go into a separate room. It is a great compromising vehicle.”

Duane Varan, a well-known TV researcher at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, oversees a living room fashioned as a laboratory that receives thousands of TV viewers who act as guinea pigs. Varan’s work involves measuring responses to TV shows or commercials through such methods as galvanic skin response (or how much a person sweats) or a viewer’s eye movements and heart rate.

“Our research shows that new technology actually helps to accommodate the gender difference,” Varan said. “It’s good news for the battle of the sexes.” The television can be paused momentarily while discussions are finished, and other distractions don’t have to wait until commercial breaks, he suggested.