It's TVHeadend, but I think that's in part because no two XML generators seems to indicate new programs in the same way, and some of them don't convert the new indication. I know that zap2xml produces output that has a <new /> tag, for example:
<programme start="20161230200000 -0500" stop="20161230203000 -0500" channel="Cpbseastern.zap2it.com">
<title lang="en">Washington Week</title>
<date>20161230</date>
<category lang="en">Series</category>
<episode-num system="dd_progid">EP01653923.0208</episode-num>
<video>
<aspect>16:9</aspect>
<quality>HDTV</quality>
</video>
<new />
<subtitles type="teletext" />
</programme>
But TVHeadend just ignores it. If you create a new DVR AutoRec entry, there is no way to specify that you only want to record a "new" program.
HOWEVER, there may be a workaround. I don't know about the pay service you're using, but zap2xml has this option:
-A "new live" = append "" to program titles that are "new" and/or "live"
So if you used that flag you could maybe use "program title \" in the Title (Regexp) field (I think the * would need to be escaped with the backslash since it otherwise has a special meaning in a regular expression). This may or may not work; if you try it I'd watch carefully for a while to make sure it's not skipping any new episodes.
As I say I don't know if whatever software you use to process the pay service listings has a similar option. If it doesn't and you want to try zap2xml, this article may prove helpful:
https://freetoairamerica.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/some-hints-for-getting-free-to-air-satellite-channels-into-the-electronic-program-guide-in-kodi-or-xbmc-or-another-frontend/
EDIT: Turned out that I had asked for support of the <new /> and <previously-shown /> tags almost a year ago and according to
https://tvheadend.org/issues/3529 that was added in version 4.1-1451~gf074688 but I do not have any way of running beta versions. If you know how to run a beta then maybe you can upgrade to the latest 4.1 branch version and get this to work, but I'll need to wait for the next stable version (which I hope we will see sometime in the coming year).