'House' and 'The Office' Get DVR Bumps

Zap2It.com | April 27, 2007

Hugh Laurie, 'House'

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'Lost' and 'Friday Night Lights' also improve with timeshifted data

"House" and "The Office" are among TV's most DVRed shows, according to figures announced earlier this week by Nielsen Media Research.

On Wednesday (April 25), Nielsen unveiled its "timeshifted" viewership figures for the week ending April 8, revealing the shows making the biggest viewership gains in digital video recorder playback, a group that includes several established hits and several underdogs that probably appreciate the boost.

Talk about the rich getting richer, in the sample week, FOX's "House" added 2.74 million viewers in playback, adding to the show's already exceptional 19.024 million live-viewers. ABC's "Lost" added 2.474 million, up from 10.83 million live. The Tuesday performance episode of "American Idol" added 2.458 million, making barely a ripple when added to the 24.741 million live viewers that week.

In terms of pure percentages, no show could touch NBC's "The Office," which got a 31 percent boost, going from 5.774 million to 7.595 million after the addition of playback viewers. "Lost" was up by 22.8 percent, followed in percentage terms by "24" (19.4 percent bump) and "Prison Break" (18.3 percent). A trio of struggling NBC shows followed, as "30 Rock," "Scrubs" and "Friday Night Lights" all saw increases of more than 16 percent when DVR audiences were factored in.

It's worth noting that for the week announced to the press, certain shows -- ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" in particular -- were in repeats.

Nielsen has been making this information available to networks and advertisers throughout the season, though this was the first time-shifted announcement to the press since December, when "Studio 60" appeared to get a big boost from DVR viewers. That news hasn't exactly done a great job of keeping the Aaron Sorkin show on NBC's schedule this spring.

According to Nielsen, DVRs are now in between 15 and 17 percent of the nation's TV households.