I don’t know about you, but I’ve been finding myself binge watching television shows all the time. I prefer them that way. I fast forward through the commercials, watch the episode and then watch the next and the next and the next, until I’ve had enough and then I go to bed!
Lately, I’ve been talking with clients, family and friends and they too do the same thing. I wondered if it was a trend. Is this where we are headed? Are we heading to becoming a society of binge watchers?
I asked my community on Facebook and got a 10% response rate to my question about “binge watching.” When I asked what they were watching, the front runners were:
- Scandal
- House of Cards
- Mad Men
- Breaking Bad
- Orange is the New Black
- Walking Dead
- Girls
- And lots more!
So what do you think that’s about?
When we were growing up, there was no DVR. You sat through the commercials and sometimes the commercials were the best part of the show. Recently, I read that corporations are putting more money into live sporting games to put commercials there as opposed to popular shows. It makes sense. Why put a commercial on a popular show that will just be binge watched less the commercials?
So why are people binge watching? Do you think it’s more interesting that way? Are cliffhangers too intense to hang on another week? Are people just bored and want something to get engaged in?
To me, it’s almost like reading a good book. Huh, maybe that’s it! Maybe we want to just get involved in something that is mindless and easy. Maybe we just watch television as if it’s a book and we don’t want to put it down?
I think it’s a sign of the times. We’re finding we have less and less patience for commercials. We also tend to “find” a “new” show we’ve never seen before, but that’s been out for a long time, and then want to catch up on all the episodes. We just did that with Psych and it was a blast!
Thanks for sharing! I have to check that one out!
So…I have never watched any of the shows you listed. I’m one of the “outliers” I guess! I do record shows and skip the commercials, though.
Madame Secretary — (The CBS program, not the blog author)
Thanks to DVR in the cloud I do as much “binging” as time and space will allow — Optimum is stingy with the space, and if one goes to the episodes they save, the Fast Forward is disabled and what’s the point.