Neilsen to Track Ratings Using DVRs

Starting next week, the company that measures what people watch on television will also follow what they record on DVRs to watch later.

The move by Nielsen Media Research is a reflection of how the traditional notion of watching TV is changing. And if Nielsen's numbers show that new technology is also changing what people are watching, it has the potential to profoundly disrupt a multibillion-dollar business.

An estimated 7 percent of the nation's 110 million homes with televisions now have digital video recorders, and that's expected to rise to one quarter of the TV population by sometime in 2007

The immediate effect will likely be minor, since only about 100 DVR homes will be included in the first week's survey. But Nielsen plans to gradually add families and by summer it expects to have DVR homes in its survey that mirror the percentage of such homes in the nation as a whole.