For the first time, Nielsen has officially released the ‘time-shifted data’ that showed how much of a boost shows have gotten from DVR viewings.  Hollywood Reporter has the story:

Fox’s “House” and ABC’s “Lost” led a recent week in increases in absolute viewers, with “House” gaining 2.7 million viewers in DVR playback — on top of the 19 million who watched the show live — and “Lost” adding 2.5 million to its 10.8 million viewers seeing the show when it first aired for the week ending April 8.

NBC’s “Office” was the leader in terms of a percentage gain, jumping 31% from 5.8 million viewers to 7.6 million viewers. Other shows — including “Lost” and Fox’s “24″ and “Prison Break” — did well in DVR playback that week. So, too, did an NBC show that has struggled to find a following: “Friday Night Lights” saw a 17% jump in viewership from 4.9 million to 5.7 million viewers that week.

Click here to view the rest of the story.

I wonder how much of this is taken into account when networks look at what shows should be renewed and what shows should be dropped.  As everyone knows, viewers translate into advertising dollars, which is, understandably, one of the largest objectives of the networks.  But, as the article states, roughly 50% of commercials are fast forwarded through by DVR viewers.  And if 16% of American households are DVR households, as the article also says, that translates to roughly 1 million viewers who did not see commercials on Lost, and 1.7 million who skipped them on House.

This is really interesting for me, because I never watch live TV.  The majority of my TV time usually comes between 10:00 and midnight.  And I skip pretty much all of the commercials, which I think more than just 50% of DVR viewers do, as well. 

It will be interesting to see, as the DVR becomes more and more commonplace in the American home, how it will affect the way that the networks choose their programming, and how they manage their advertising.