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Think we Timeshift from 9:30pm? Think again….

We may be Timeshifting The Good Wife, Criminal Minds & House Husbands -but wait til you hear how early we are doing it.

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2014-02-07_1005It’s a common perception that audiences Timeshift television shows from 9:30pm with dramas such as The Good Wife, Criminal Minds, Offspring, Under the Dome and House Husbands.

But early data in TV Tonight’s Audience Inventory suggests otherwise.

Most respondents indicate they are Timeshifting their viewing as early as 7:30pm and some as early as 6:30pm.

While those dramas may net the biggest gains in Consolidated viewing, audiences are increasingly watching them in the early evening in favour of Live broadcasts of Reality shows.

Viewers who wait until 9:30pm and 10:30pm to start Timeshifted viewing comprise the smallest group of respondents, in current polling.

Published OzTAM numbers for Consolidated viewing have only ever indicated the most popular titles -always dramas- but never indicated the time of day viewers switch from Live broadcasts to shows stored on their PVRs.

Around 1/4 of respondents have indicated 25% of their total viewing is Timeshifted, around another 1/4 viewed as much as 75% of their content non-Live.

But there is also another 1/4 who have indicated they really don’t want any Timeshifted content.

Full results from the Audience Inventory will be published in coming weeks.

You can still have your say here.

20 Responses

  1. I also timeshift everything recorded from free to air TV, so I can fast forward the ads, including the 6 pm news. I never watch it live, as there’s too many commercials.

  2. I timeshift everything rwegardless of timeslot except for live sports such as Formula 1 and I do watch ABC ans SBS TV live.

    Everything else on commercial TV gets timeshifted. As I don’t watch any singing/dancing/renovation/manufactured reality TV then I have a 4-6 week buffer of drama and comedy material which is stripped of advertising and then watched at my convenience. Where a show gets obviously screwed around and incompetently handled (eg. Dexter, Game of Thrones, Six Feet Under, Weeds, Community, The Americans etc) I buy the box set.

    When legal and realistically priced material without the Australia Tax is made downloadable I only expect to watch live news and sport on FTA.

  3. I watch most things on catchup…I cant deal with drama when I am tired…cannot concentrate…and as someone else said…if you miss a point…you can go back and watch again…..
    I dont record…mostly because it is a hassle…and so many here say they miss the ends of shows…so why bother….
    Mostly catchup..for me..is Iview or SBS, sometimes Tenplay.
    I watch Escape to the Country live.

  5. I time shift 100% of the shows now that the news goes for 1 hour i time shift that as well so i can FF the stupid time wasting weather sport snapshots and the stupid promos for what is coming up later in the buliten the amount of time time shifting saves is ridiculous

  6. I timeshift everything at home. News, reality, drama etc etc. I can fastforward the commercials, endless recaps (The Block I’m looking at you!) and other time wasting junk lol. As with mellie0105 I haven’t watched “live” tv in years!

  7. I’d be cautious about extrapolating the viewing habits of TV Tonight readers (or, rather, those who self-selected to complete the survey) to the wider population. I think that, on average, we are prob better informed (thank you David) and both more aware of, and more willing to use, various alternatives to live viewing.

    Like many of the people commenting here I watch very little “live” TV, and it’s mostly sport, news, and some current affairs. I used to record a fair bit of what I watched but with the unpredictable start and finish times, I have shifted to online viewing. A side benefit of that is that I don’t even have to press a button to skip annoying ads and I can watch 3 × 42 minute dramas in about 2 hours.

  8. I time shift from 6pm every day starting with the News. That way I can FF through the commercials, sports “news” and filler stories. I don’t watch any talent shows either, so my nights are filled with prerecorded, legal pre-download, or a on-demand streaming. I can’t think of one must see show that I would be prepared to find on FTA commercial and watch it as it airs because they make it too difficult and the annoyance takes the enjoyment out of it. I don’t like interactive second screen either, I don’t care about other peoples thoughts on twitter or those apps like JumpIn or Fango.

  9. I mainly time shift reality shows so I can skip through the 4 minutes of ads, the 20 seconds “bonus extra”, the additional minute of ads and then the 2 minutes of recaps of what we just saw and then the 3 minutes of stories about the contestants which have been repeated each week since the beginning.

  10. It seems most of us miss the days of shows starting and finishing on the half hour. So will the networks listen to our pleas or will they just continue as they have?

  11. With shows like Modern Family running 21mins and L&O:SVU running 41mins. I can watch 90+mins of TV in an hour if I PVR. 30mins of ads in 1.5hrs of program is ridiculous. Commercial networks are their own worst enemy these days with overlaping, excessive ads and promos, annoying pop-ups and long promos disguised as ‘sneak peeks’. I rarely watch anything ‘live’, other than ABC24, 4Corners, Q&A, or SBS. 7, 9 & 10 are 95% PVR. Tried TENplay once. Ads cut off the first and last 10secs of dialogue. Why bother when there’s PVRs?

  12. I don’t think I have watched a live TV show from start to finish in years. Closest I come is pressing play half way through the recording so I can skip the ads.

  13. The only shows last week that I watched ‘live’ were Wednesday’s The Bachelor and Offspring. Every other night I have been catching up on recordings – and sworn at the tv repeatedly due to the final minute or show being cut off due to reality programs running over. I miss the days of shows starting on the half-hour religiously.

  14. If you don’t watch reality and are happy to miss out on the ‘conversation’ going on via ‘second screens’, there’s no reason to watch anything live really, except for sport.

    I watch a lot of TV from various sources so can’t afford to waste 20 minutes out of 60 taken up by ads on FTA broadcasts.

  15. I don’t watch Talent Shows so usually start watching recorded dramas after dinner. And often record other stuff while doing so because they are good for filling in gaps of time.

    I’ll record Grand Designs, Mythbusters, WDTYTA?, Time Team and Catalyst this week. I often don’t get home or fix dinner till after they start and this way I can make sure I see the interesting bits while skip ads and boring bits in the middle.

    I recorded Father Brown last night because I want to see the Rear Window aspect but was keen to check out some new BBC First Shows so I know whether to record them next week. Peaky Blinders, The Politician’s Husband and The Village made the cut.

  16. We watch recorded content from 7.30 most nights – we dislike “reality” shows and with the tactical over-runs we find there’s usually nothing to watch before at least 8.45pm.

  17. I don’t watch much ‘live’ TV anymore, apart from news but even then depending on the days events I might skip the evening news and just catch up online or with SkyNews before I go to bed.

    Time shift and online catch up is the future and it’s here now.

  18. I tend to timeshift almost all of my viewing. Mainly because the shows I am interested in tend to be on later at night when I am too sleepy to follow involved storylines. But it also allows me to quickly zap through the show, or deleted after 10 mins if it is not what I expected.

    I really do think commercial TV is doing its best to kill itself. It delays starting and finishing time, fill shows up with ads (5mins sometimes) and put on the most amazing crap (maybe I am too old). Free to air TV is in its death thrones and it can’t re-invent a different business model.

  20. I timeshift everything, I only watch live if my pvr’s are occupied recording other shows. With using multiple screens or cooking dinner it is easy to miss something & think ‘what just happened’. With recording I can rewind, without I have to let it go and accept missing plot points.

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