Over the past year, the percentage of digital video recorder households in Nielsen’s sample has more than doubled, while online video viewing has taken off with more than 60 million U.S. households now subscribing to broadband. That’s resulted in a huge boom in television time-shifting, according to the new Digital Life America study from Solutions Research Group. The Toronto-based company found that during last November’s sweeps, 25 percent of primetime viewing was shifted, including 55 percent among adults 18-49 who have DVRs. That number will shoot up by double-digit percentages the next few years, SRG predicts. At the same time, more people are skipping commercials via these devices, mainly because viewing commercial-less entertainment takes less time. Kaan Yigit, partner with Solutions Research Group and study director for Digital Life America, talks to Media Life about time-shifting, how to combat commercial skipping, and the coming cultural shift in TV viewing.

What other significant changes are you seeing in how people use delayed viewing devices?
 
The concept of time-shifting is better known generally. TiVo had the ball rolling and now with broadband and more video-on-demand from cable companies, the concept is more mainstream.
 
The laptop is becoming the real anywhere-broadband delayed viewing device.

One-in-three broadband homes have wireless internet and half have laptops now, and you can imagine the flexibility that gives the consumer who may have missed the last night's episode of “House” and doesn’t have a DVR.
 

You say that 55 percent of 18-49s’ TV watching during sweeps in DVR households was time-shifted. How much has that increased compared to last year and why?
 
While we do not have an exact comparable benchmark from last year on this, triangulating from other measures, the growth should be about 25 percent over last year.
 
In our research we find that DVR use gives people a great deal of real satisfaction -- not because they dislike commercials but because each 10 minute block of time saved watching a show via DVR represents what we call “found time.”

People feel better when they think they are using their time wisely in our fast-moving culture. In fact, we find most DVR users actually spend more time with TV, just less with commercials.
 

How much time-shifting will we see in television, say, two years from now?
 
Our current benchmark today is 25 percent, when we look at all devices and all demos 12+ whether they have DVRs or watch broadband TV or not. We expect that to go to at least 35 to 40 percent primarily driven by broadband content available online.

If you think about it, there is a big cultural shift coming -- kids growing up in 18-49 broadband/DVR households don’t understand what it is to not being able to pause TV or miss an episode.
 
Networks will continue to put content online and others will aggregate -- Comcast's Fancast is out there now, and Hulu is launching very soon. So we are in the early days of broadband-delivered TV, analogous to switch from black and white to color TV in the 50s.

You also found that commercial avoidance is rising among DVR users. Why is that? How much more pervasive will it get?
 
As I mentioned, people love being able to reclaim time and not have to look at their watches. The DVR is a time machine for most people and nearly half of Americans believe they are in a rush all the time.

So it’s no surprise that ad-skipping is on the rise. The combination of primetime drama and women in particular is a sweet spot for ad-skipping -- men watch more sports, which are more DVR resistant, generally.
 

What can advertisers do to guard against this?
 
Already we are seeing a rethinking of strategies. Generally, a number of things come to mind.
 
One is live. In other words, go into event/live situations. Two is sponsorships or ownership. If you like a property, think of owning, as opposed to just “renting.” Three is environment. If you go into tighter verticals, ads are as important to viewers/users as the actual content. Also broadband - there are relatively fewer advertisers on broadband still.
 
Finally, we also find in our research that DVR skipping impacts heavy-rotation commercials more. People will stop to watch their favorites or a new commercial more. So fresh and entertaining executions are important.
 

How long until we really see video-capable digital media players begin to take off?
 
The players are taking off, but the behavior is not changing. Half of mobile video player owners do not watch video on their devices -- they are basically used as music-players and photo albums. 

The reason is it’s still clunky, clumsy or costly for most to get video onto these devices. And content is slim-pickings if you are not using a p2p or ripping your own. The mobile video category will take off when we can easily access and watch flash video (like we can on broadband now) on a $49 phone, not a $399 iPhone.

We are three to four years away from that, at least.