With the broadcast television season underway as of last night, I thought I'd react to some of the factoids I found in an article in Variety.

DVR's are in 37.3% of American households.

True, that's up from 1.2% in January 2006, which represents a pretty fast rise to prominence for the little Devices of Joy. Yet the number still always seems low to me. After seven years, I can really no longer imagine the constraint-filled waste of time that is watching TV the normal way.

The average American watched 35 hours and 34 minutes of TV a week last season.

Holy mother of pearl, that seems like a lot! This is why we all need DVRs!

Viewers 45 and older remain the most eager to time-shift their TV viewing. The 45-plus crowd makes up 37% of DVR viewing, up from 28% in 2006.

This just seems made up. Is this only because viewers 45 and older watch more TV, and maybe there are more of them?

54% of households have HDTV.

In, 2003, I would've predicted that DVRs would grow faster than HDTV. As awesome as HD is, I think a DVR is still more of a game-changer. But I guess there are a few factors at play: a) HDTV has gotten better and better; b) I suppose it's easier to see, in a store, the impact HD will have, versus a DVR; and most importantly c) It seems you can't actually buy a non-HDTV anymore unless you really work at it. Which would be stupid.

Dramas account for 41% of all viewing across the broadcast networks.

Is this fuzzy math? This probably means that dramas account for 41% of all minutes watched. Which doesn't tell us all that much, since they are twice as long as comedies. In any event, I definitely watch more comedies than dramas, but I don't know how my percentages match up. A project for another (I'm sure thrilling) post.
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