>In what may seem a media business version of the Stockholm syndrome, television network executives have fallen in love with a former tormentor: the digital video recorder.
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>The reason is not simply that more households own DVRs — 33 percent compared with 28 percent at this point in 2008 — helping some marginal shows become hits. It is also that more people seem content to sit through the commercials than networks once thought.
>...
>Against almost every expectation, nearly half of all people watching delayed shows are still slouching on their couches watching messages about movies, cars and beer. According to Nielsen, 46 percent of viewers 18 to 49 years old for all four networks taken together are watching the commercials during playback, up slightly from last year.
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>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/business/media/02ratings.html?_r=1
>
>Wow...just wow.

I wonder just how real the stats are. Do they really know that 46% of viewers sit there? Do they know for sure that a lot of these people don't use the commercial time to go to the bathroom or make a sandwich instead of stopping the show? Old habits are hard to break, and this is the way people got used to watching TV.

Maybe, but I wonder.