The digital video recorder is the biggest thing to hit television in years, and it just got a lot bigger.

New Nielsen data reveals that when delayed viewing is fully taken into account, ratings actually soar for some shows in households with DVRs. Shows that are only modest performers on the nights they air become big hits when that live viewing is supplemented by DVR viewing over the following week.

Some of the most dramatic increases are for shows in competitive time slots, in some cases twice as high as on the day it airs, as reported by Nielsen Media Research each week.

NBC’s “The Office” and “My Name is Earl” show the biggest gains. The live household rating for “The Office” is 3.7 in all homes but the show generates an 8.7 rating in DVR homes when time-shifted viewing is counted, according to a MediaVest analysis of Nielsen ratings for the first five weeks of the broadcast season.

The gains spread across all dayparts.

“When you look at only DVR households, things get pretty dramatic,” says John Spiropoulos, vice president and group research director at MediaVest. “Daytime and primetime have increases of 70 percent and 75 percent and the other dayparts are roughly up 10 percent or less among 18-34 years olds.”

Among 35-54 year olds in DVR households, primetime ratings are up 57 percent when comparing live-plus-seven-day viewing to live viewing. In the 55-plus group, primetime is up 31 percent.

And even though under 10 percent of homes in Nielsen’s survey have DVRs, their impact is signficant, boosting overall ratings of some shows notably. Case in point: “The Office”  has a live rating of 3.7 but when time-shifted viewing in DVR homes is factored in, that rating rises to a 4.4 in all homes, including DVR and non-DVR households.

Nielsen for the first time this year is releasing three streams of data, including live, live-plus-same-day and live-plus-seven-day ratings. It reports that 78 percent of all viewers in DVR households who watch recorded broadcast primetime shows play them back within two days and 84 percent in three days. 

This Nielsen data comes out as the broadcast and cable networks and media buyers and advertisers debate over what role delayed viewing should have in ad buying negotations. Networks would like the full seven days counted, noting the sizable delayed viewing audiences, while buyers are resisting, arguing, among other things, that delayed viewing is of little use to time-sensitive ad messages.

In its study, MediaVest looked into the 10 network programs that get the biggest ratings boost from time-shifted viewing.

“The Office” and “Earl” rank No. 1 and No. 2, with ratings up 197 percent and 155 percent, respectively, in DVR homes.

CBS’s “CSI” is No. 3 with a 147 percent bump. The network’s “Ghost Whisperer” is No. 4 at 144 percent.

ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” is No. 5 with a 141 percent increase. “Lost” is up 140 percent.

The live-plus-seven-day rating for NBC’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” is 136 percent higher than its live rating in DVR homes.

NBC’s “Friday Night Lights” ranks No. 8 at 135 percent.

NBC’s “Heroes” and CBS’s “CSI: Miami” and “Survivor” round out the top 10, increasing 127 percent and 122 percent for “Miami” and “Survivor.”

“We knew from research and common sense that the DVR gives you an opportunity to watch a show that you probably wouldn’t watch if there wasn’t a DVR,” says Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development at NBC. “This doesn’t surprise us, but the magnitude is surprising.”

The ratings bumps are highest for audiences most sought by advertisers. “On a national basis among 18-34s, who are time-shifting the most, primetime on average is seeing an 8 percent increase in live-plus-seven [ratings] versus live,” says Spiropoulos. He says primetime among 35-54s is up 4 percent on this measure. The increase is 1 percent for people 55 or older.

Further, those bumps extend to ad pods within shows, which makes the data all the more timely as Nielsen, the networks and buyers and advertisers wrangle over Nielsen's proposal to track so-called commercial minutes. MediaVest estimates that commercial ratings for some top-rated time-shifted shows go up about 50 percent in DVR homes when including time-shifted viewing, compared to 182 percent for programs.

But MediaVest cautions that it is still remains unclear how many viewers are watching recorded commercials. Spiropoulos notes that many of Nielsen’s survey respondents may be leaving the room during commericals but failing to punch it into their people meters when they do so.

Says Wurtzel: “The concern we have is that if we continue to do business on a live-only basis then we’re distorting what the viewing is."