Live PD Was The Most DVR'd Show Of 2017

2017 was a pretty great year for complex, challenging TV, but one of the top performers filling up viewers' DVRs over the year was a more simple pleasure.

According to data accrued by Inscape, a subsidiary of TV manufacturer Vizio (via Deadline), A&E's police ridealong show Live PD was the most DVR'd show of 2017, leaving the otherwise-dominant The Walking Dead in second place.

Live PD isn't the only reality show to be taking up a decent chunk of America's hard drive space—as a matter of fact, reality TV is the DVR category's most dominant genre, with Teen Mom 2, The Voice, Gold Rush, and The Real Housewives (both Orange County and New York City flavor) filling out the remainder of the list.

For scripted programming, viewers remained down with The Walking Dead and This Is Us, as well as the Cult season of American Horror Story. 

As far as live TV habits go (listed on the Inscape chart as "DTV"), Live PD doesn't even place in the top 10, which is sort of humorous, considering the live aspect is arguably the show's biggest selling point. In that category, sports and news dominated, with a robust showing for fictional cop shows like Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Criminal Minds, and Blue Bloods.

It's hard to argue against the appeal of Live PD, or Cops, its enduring spiritual predecessor. No matter what your opinions are on law enforcement, there's still a voyeuristic thrill to tagging along in extreme situations as a safe bystander. Interestingly, while Live PD's "this is literally happening right now" hook makes it unique, it's apparently not that essential to enjoying the show.

The full rankings, recorded with painstaking, second-by-second accuracy by Inscape, are below. 

While it's certainly interesting to see the data breakdown, it's worth noting that Vizio has gotten in trouble before over its laser-focused data collection practices, specifically for secretly selling user viewing data to third-party advertisers—so if you're the kind of person who wants to watch TV without being watched, maybe keep your TV disconnected from the internet. Otherwise the world might find out how many unwatched Real Housewives episodes you've had banked for the entire year, and that would just be criminally embarrassing.