The Hills Has a 29.7% Increase and 978,000 DVR Viewers
For the week of May 12-18, 2008, MTVs The Hills continued as the top cable time-shifted show with an increase of 29.7% over its Live audience in its Live+7 viewing audience and an absolute time-shifted audience size of 978,000. Filling out the top 10 were two episodes of WWE Raw, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Race, a LA Lakers/Utah Jazz NBA playoff game, House, Mighty B!, High School Musical 2, a Fairly Odd Parents and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Top 20 Most Time-shifted (DVR viewed) Cable Shows:
| Rank | Programs | Network | Persons Live+7 (000s) | Persons Live (000s) | Time-shifted Audience (000s) | % increase from Live to Live+7 |
| 1 | THE HILLS | MTV | 4,275 | 3,297 | 978 | 29.7% |
| 2 | WWE RAW | USA | 5,064 | 4,522 | 542 | 12.0% |
| 3 | WWE RAW | USA | 4,624 | 4,171 | 453 | 10.9% |
| 4 | NASCAR SPRINT CUP RACING | SPD | 4,216 | 4,013 | 203 | 5.1% |
| 5 | NBA CONF SEMIS (LAKERS/JAZZ) | ESPN | 4,669 | 4,483 | 186 | 4.1% |
| 6 | HOUSE | USA | 3,491 | 3,339 | 152 | 4.6% |
| 7 | MIGHTY B! | NICK | 3,687 | 3,537 | 150 | 4.2% |
| 8 | HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 2 | DSNY | 3,879 | 3,738 | 141 | 3.8% |
| 9 | FAIRLY ODD PARENTS | NICK | 3,496 | 3,364 | 132 | 3.9% |
| 10 | MOVIE (INDIANA JONES/LAST CRUSADE) | SCIFI | 3,897 | 3,776 | 121 | 3.2% |
| 11 | NBA PLAYOFFS (JAZZ/LAKERS) | TNT | 5,497 | 5,381 | 116 | 2.2% |
| 12 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | 3,528 | 3,412 | 116 | 3.4% |
| 13 | NBA PLAYOFFS (SPURS/HORNETS) | TNT | 4,555 | 4,445 | 110 | 2.5% |
| 14 | SCI FI MOVIE (INDIANA JONES/LAST CRUSAD) | SCIFI | 3,898 | 3,796 | 102 | 2.7% |
| 15 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | 3,369 | 3,276 | 93 | 2.8% |
| 16 | SPONGEBOB | NICK | 3,682 | 3,589 | 93 | 2.6% |
| 17 | NBA PLAYOFFS (CAVALIERS/CELTICS) | TNT | 5,427 | 5,336 | 91 | 1.7% |
| 18 | NBA PLAYOFFS (CELTICS/CAVALIERS) | TNT | 4,781 | 4,690 | 91 | 1.9% |
| 19 | ICARLY | NICK | 3,095 | 3,006 | 89 | 3.0% |
| 20 | NBA CONF SEMIS (CELTICS/CAVALIERS) | ESPN | 4,919 | 4,831 | 88 | 1.8% |
We’ve now learned that regular season sports are rarely DVR’d but that playoff and special sports events often make our list. This week six NBA Playoff games join the week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race in the top 20.
Our time-shifting chart ranks which of the Top 40 cable shows had the largest increase in viewing between Live audience and Live+7 audience numbers from viewers watching shows later on their digital video recorders (DVRs). We include both the absolute size of the time-shifted audience (and sort the chart by that metric), and the % increase over the Live viewing.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
