More TV, less time

In the two years that a digital video recorder has been a part of my household, a subtle but distinct change has taken place in the viewing habits of all four human residents. We are generally watching more TV, but we are spending less time doing it. And we rarely, if ever, watch a commercial.

This is true for my high-school daughter, whose junior year is limiting her TV time to weekends or during workouts, and for her dad, whose TV watching is a late-night affair. My own TV habits have changed dramatically. I record the 5:30 national news to view between 5:50 and 6:10 or while dinner is cooking. I was among the 120 people who actually watched this year's World Series, but I started each game 45 minutes late so I could skip the commercials. If I got bored waiting for the game to start, I watched another pre-recorded show, sans annoying ads.

Even my college student son has his favorite shows set to record and burns them to a DVD on the weekends he comes home for later viewing on his laptop.

All this is anecdotal, but in researching this week's cover story and talking with others about personalized video, it becomes obvious that this is far from one family's experience. The personalization of video is already happening, and Web-based video is part of it — but only a part. AT&T's Homezone service, which doesn't require a network upgrade, is another example of one of the many different ways in which entertainment content is going to be coming at us from many new and different directions, in addition to the more hyped methods.

There are two obvious conclusions to be drawn: First, if I'm an advertiser, I'm looking for some other way to spend my billions. Second, if I'm a service provider, I'm looking at a massive opportunity to grab a piece of the action and hang on tight. Call it the digital lifestyle, the digital living room, the digital lamppost, it doesn't matter. It's here, and it's changing everything.