Binge watching is old news
Binge watching, the watching of many episodes of a TV series at a stretch, is gradually going out of fashion. Even streaming giant Netflix, which has often presented itself as the binge-watching platform par excellence in recent years, no longer wants to be associated with the term. Instead, it is considered a sign of quality if only one episode is watched per week, a study by Anglia Ruskin University shows.
"Binge watching" is a term with a rather negative connotation. It means that content is consumed in excess. That tends to have a flair of coolness among young people, because adults turn up their noses at it. But streaming services also want to grow beyond a youth audience and not just be seen as fast-food platforms," says Stefan Caduff, business manager of the media psychology institution Sapia, when asked by the news portal Pressetext.
Study author Mareike Jenner has examined the changing reputation of binge watching by looking at the debate surrounding the Netflix series "Dead Girls Don't Lie," which deals with the topic of suicide among teenagers. According to the researcher, the series faced a lot of criticism for this portrayal, which also triggered a discussion about its format.
Netflix released all 13 episodes of each of the three seasons so far in one go. The binge-watching of an already controversial series was perceived as questionable by many critics.
Term "binge watching" taboo
"Concerns about teen audiences historically often point to general fears about the impact of media on 'uneducated' audiences," Jenner said. The researcher says that in public discourse, binge watching is increasingly perceived as "bad" or "harmful" television.
It's now considered a sign of class to return to watching series with a time gap between episodes. The streaming service Disney+ is already following suit, releasing only one episode of series every week.
Netflix is also beginning to see this trend. According to Jenner, the term binge watching no longer even appears in the platform's advertising campaigns. The well-known actor Guy Pearce appeared in the Netflix series "The Innocents" last year and said in an interview that Netflix had forbidden him to use the term binge watching in promotions. (pte)
