The Impact of Time-Shift TV on TV Viewership and on Ad Consumption: Results from Both Natural and Randomized Experiments

We partner with a major telecommunications provider to study the effect of Time-Shift TV (TSTV) on TV consumption. TSTV automatically records in the cloud programs that were broadcasted live for the past few days and thus allows users to watch the programs they want when they want. In 2012, our industrial partner deployed TSTV to half the TV channels it offered to premium consumers. Using difference-in-differences with Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting we find that, on average, the introduction of TSTV increased the consumption of daily TV by 11 minutes (p