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.
People were interested in these podcasts
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.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.