A telephone survey of randomly selected homes was conducted to locate current owners of videocassette recorders (VCRs) for a study of their VCR-associated television viewing of both public (PTV) and commercial (CTV) television, and a one-week TV activity diary was mailed to homes in 16 cities. Analysis of data from 250 completed diaries indicates that: (1) the typical VCR household viewed real-time TV for four hours a day, viewed playback of recorded material for one hour, and recorded an average of 19 minutes a day; (2) over 90 percent of the programs recorded were regular series, movies, and specials, 60 percent of which were broadcast during prime-time hours; (3) public television reach among VCR owners during the week was slightly over 40 percent, with a 9.6 percent share of VCR recording and a 4.5 percent share of playback viewing; (5) combining real-time and playback viewing, VCR owners using PTV viewed 91 percent more public television than the average amount by all PTV viewers; (6) recording and playback of PTV was heaviest during fringe-time periods; and (7) recording of PTV programs seemed to be for time-shift viewing. A summary of other research on VCR use concludes the report. (MER)