Sky PVR Has 2 Million Subscribers in U.K.
U.K. satellite television provider British Sky Broadcasting (BskyB) said this week that its Sky+ PVR passed the 2 million mark this week. Two million users is an interesting figure, since Tivo last reported that is has about 4.4 million. Is the U.K. more PVR-friendly than the U.S.?
Some history: Both Tivo and Sky released their DVRs around the same time in the U.K. The Sky+ DVR was introduced in 2001 and it was slow to catch on. BSkyB spent about £20 million marketing the new PVR and now it seems to be leading the way in PVR ownership and subscribers in the U.K. Last year, BSkyB added a cool feature: allowing subscribers to schedule to record shows via their cell phones. (Tivo, are you listening?)
In the meantime, TiVo launched in the U.K. in 2000 but after manufacturer Thomson, dropped production Sky+ began to dominate the PVR market.
In a press release this week, BSkyB said that a video-on-demand service would be coming in 2007, so users can see the week’s best of shows on-demand.
BSkyB also announced research results of their viewers’ TV watching and recording habits. Apparently, drama is recorded most frequently by customers, accounting for 39.3% of all time-shifted viewing. Other genres that did well are documentaries (14.9%), entertainment (13.0%) and movies (9.5%) although news and weather accounted for just 0.6% of time-shifted viewing.
Surprising, time-shifting accounts for an average of 12.2% of total viewing through Sky+ boxes. That seems low, considering I almost exclusively use my PVR to record everything and watch it later without commercials.
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