BINGE-WATCH(V.): The start of a new tradition

Remember when gathering around the TV once a week to catch the latest episode of a favourite show was a thing? Sure, it still happens, but in this time of convenience and instant gratification, the way we watch TV is changing. More and more, people are devouring multiple episodes of TV shows, even entire seasons, in one shot. With surveys suggesting that most people now binge-watch at least occasionally, it seems this is one phenomenon that’s here to stay.

Binging, Defined

To be clear, binge-watching isn’t merely parking yourself in front of a small screen for hours at a time. People have been doing that for decades, after all. Instead, binge-watching refers to watching several episodes of the same show back-to-back and in one sitting. That, however, begs the question, how many episodes officially makes a binge? Well, each person will define that differently, but in a 2013 Netflix survey, a majority of respondents agreed that binging would mean watching between two and six episodes at one go. These binges can last as long as the viewer has time and/or stamina, gobbling up whole evenings, days and even weekends. Consider the college student who, in a 2011 Washington Post article on this topic, reported watching 120 episodes of How I Met Your Mother in four weeks. A little extreme, perhaps, but it shows how this habit has become a regular thing in popular culture.

Some Background

So, how did binge-watching become the new normal? As a habit, it can be traced back to the popularity of DVD box sets in the late 90s and early 2000s. Containing whole seasons, or even the entire series, of a television show on a few discs made for addictive viewing. It thus became perfectly acceptable (even brag-worthy) to stay in on a Friday night and tear through several hours of Sex and the City or The Sopranos.

But we probably wouldn’t have modern-day binge-watching without the Internet. For starters, the spread of broadband throughout the 2000s brought a large number of people online. At the same time, the technology behind video streaming and video-on-demand (VOD) made huge strides forward. As a result, the once far-fetched idea of watching TV and movies online became not only possible but also something that media companies could make a lot of money from.

Cultural Phenomenon

If there’s one media company that’s associated with binge-watching, it’s probably Netflix. At one time a mail-order DVD business, Netflix was inspired by video streaming sites like YouTube to explore the possibilities of video-on-demand. Smart move. As DVD sales inevitably declined, Netflix prospered thanks to its growing Internet presence. Then, in 2011, it started streaming the early seasons of three highly regarded TV series: Breaking Bad, Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Another smart move. As these shows became hits on TV, millions of new subscribers came to Netflix to catch up quickly on the seasons they missed.

Changing Habits

Nowadays, video-on-demand services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime produce their own original series, something that only networks could do in the past. It all started with Netflix releasing the first season of House of Cards in 2013. Going against conventional wisdom, the company released the entire season—all 13 episodes—at the same time. Combined with the post-play feature, which automatically cues the next episode each time you finish one, this decision turned Netflix into the biggest binging enabler around.

The result is that in just a few short years, binge-watching has changed how we watch and think about TV. For many viewers, gone are the days of appointment TV and scheduling life around the TV listings. Binge-watching puts viewers fully in control of their TV-watching experiences, which makes it that much harder to stop watching… t8n

Did You Know?

According to a 2017 study by consulting firm Deloitte, half of US consumers have a paid subscription to at least one video-on-demand service. About three-quarters subscribe to cable or satellite TV, but 66% only do so because their pay TV is bundled with their Internet.

Binge-racing

A binge-racer watches an entire new season of a show within 24 hours of its release. Netflix reports that 8.4 million of its subscribers have binge-raced and that the practice has grown twentyfold since 2013. And the country with the highest proportion of binge-racers? None other than Canada.