Prime-time any time: the effect of time-shifted TV on media consumption

We work with a large telecommunication provider that started offering a new time-shift service to their clients. We characterize some of the changes that time-shifted television is triggering on television consumption patterns and discuss the implications for consumers and the industry stake holders alike. We find evidence consistent with the super-star effect in which the most popular contents become even more popular at the expense of the less popular contents. This suggests that being able to watch any content at any time increases the overall viewership of prime-time content in detriment of other content, skewing the content viewership distribution. Looking at consumer subscriptions, we find evidence that time-shift TV increased the rate at which new consumers join the telecommunication provider, at the same time it also increased the rate at which consumers subscribing bundles that not capable of time shifting, decided to upgrade their service.