PVRblog pointed out that USA Today is publishing a list of the most-recorded TV programs by a group of 20,000 arbitrarily-chosen TiVo users. The data is being provided by TiVo through the long-standing program where they collect anonymized PVR use data from subscribers. The TiVo Most-Recorded Shows of the Week list that appeared in USA Today on Wednesday was published along with the Nielsen ratings for the 18-to-49 age group.
This is a coup for TiVo in that it calls public attention to the preferences of their customers, a self-selected group of sophisticated people from sought-after demographics. With a lot of television executives struggling to figure out what the 18-49 age group is doing instead of watching prime-time TV, TiVo data can help illustrate which programs that age group is time-shifting instead of watching live.
My wife and I have recently begun watching the NBC program called The Apprentice. We time-shifted both the Wednesday and Thursday night broadcasts slightly, since we were doing other things at the time the programs started. We’re not a Nielsen household, so our failure to sit in front of the TV at the appointed time would not have had an effect on the program’s ratings. Yet, it is possible that the TiVo most-recorded ratings partly reflect the fact that we are recording each new episode. (“The Apprentice” ranks fourth in the top ten TiVo Most-Recorded Shows of the Week.)
For the past few years, I’ve “taken Nielsen ratings with a grain of salt”, since I don’t think their methodology captures the television viewing habits of typical Americans. But, I believe that TiVo use data is significant.
When someone chooses to record a program on TiVo, they think that they’re going to want to watch at least part of it at some point. It would be nice if TiVo could tell us which programs their customers recorded and watched, rather than simply having recorded it. For instance, I record FoxNews Sunday each week, but I haven’t actually watched it since before Chris Wallace replaced Tony Snow.
While we’re on the subject of things I wish that TiVo would do, I’d like to see data about the most-recorded programs of the past week appear someplace on my TiVo itself. This would be like seeing the most-played tracks in iTunes, wouldn’t it?