It’s the time of year that holiday specials like tonight’s from “Saturday Night Live” and repeats like tonight’s wonderful “Glee” Christmas episode fill the airwaves.

In other words, it’s time to look for alternatives. My best advice is to consult On Demand, the DVR and all the other secondary ways viewers can now time shift programs for later viewing.

Time shifting has become a huge phenomenon in Western New York, changing the way people watch television and threatening the network TV advertising model.

After all, people speed through the commercials when they watch on their DVRr or On Demand and commercials are what pay the majority of the cost to produce the network shows.

Time shifting has become Billy Fuccillo HUGE in WNY, with 25 shows that received higher than a 2 rating when they aired live during the November seeing their viewership increase by 37 percent or more by time shifting.

The shows with the highest percentage of DVR viewing seven days after the program aired included  NBC’s “Chuck” (100 percent), the canceled “Outlaw” (86 percent) ,  “The Event” (75 percent), “Parenthood” (66 percent) and “The Office” (60 percent);  ABC’s “Private Practice” (82 percent),  “Grey’s Anatomy” (66 percent) and “Modern Family” (39 percent); and Fox’s “House” (74 percent), “Good Guys” (67 percent) and “Bones” (54 percent).

NBC has so many programs with a high percentage of time shifting viewership because their live ratings are so low. The time shifting viewership for Fox programs is even more impressive when you consider it is the only network that doesn’t allow its programs to be carried On Demand here on cable.

CBS doesn’t have a show that gets a 50 percent time-shifting bump here because its programs do so well when they originally air live. However, the popular “Survivor” (44 percent), “How I Met Your Mother” (43 percent), “Two and Half Men” (41 percent), “Survivor,” “Hawaii 5-0” (39 percent)  and “Big Bang Theory” (37 percent) are popular with time shifters.

Of course, it is easy to get a higher percentage of time shifting viewership when the original ratings are low. For instance, “Chuck” doubles its audience with time shifting to a 4.4 rating – a 2.2 rating when it originally airs and an additional 2.2 up to seven days after it airs.

A total of 15 programs saw their ratings increase by 3 or more rating points by time shifting. Notably, only two of them – CBS’ “Hawaii 5-0” and NBC’s “The Events” — were new shows. Time shifting can make it more difficult for new shows to get sampled since viewers often are choosing to watch episodes of their favorite returning shows on their DVRs rather than sample new ones.

Two-thirds of the programs that receive an additional  3 rating points or more from time shifting are on CBS. 

The programs that had the most ratings points from time shifting were ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” (4.6 additional ratings point) with Patrick Dempsey (see above), CBS’ “Big Bang” (also 4.6) with Jim Parsons and Fox’s “House” (4.5) with Hugh Laurie. “NCIS,” the most popular program in WNY and the nation, added 4.3 points from time shifting.

ABC’s 10 p.m. series “Private Practice” only gets a 4.4 live rating, but adds 3.6 time shifting points for an overall rating of 8.0. That’s impressive but the time shifting doesn’t help Channel 7 as a news lead-in.

Here are the other programs that get at least a 3 rating here from time shifting: “Two and a Half Men” (3.9); “Criminal Minds” (3.6);  “The Mentalist” and “NCIS: Los Angeles” (3.5); “CSI” and “How I Met Your Mother” (3.3); “Glee,” “Survivor” and “Hawaii 5-0” (3.1) and “The Event” (3.0).

The time shifting viewership nationally for “The Event” apparently saved it from cancellation as its live viewership took a steep weekly drop. It will return with new episodes in 2011 and will be heavily promoted again. But it still looks like it will be an uphill battle for survival for “The Event.”

pergament@msn.com

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