Did the binge-watch turn us into a nation of TV addicts? Or, for some of us, was the darkness always there? A Radio Times survey, involving 21,000 people over three months, concluded that 56% of people binge-watch television series regularly, and 81% do it at least occasionally. The survey also said that viewing habits could reveal personality traits. People who watch episodes spaced out, like in yon olden days, are conscientious and conformist. Bingers are empathetic, hedonistic and value stimulation. Which seems a flattering way to describe slobbing out in front of a screen, scarfing down entire series while your children weep and your life collapses around you.
Personally, I’ve long been a capital-B Binger. Elsewhere on these pages, I’m the television critic: the perfect cover for my “little problem”. Down my greedy viewing gullet goes this series, that series, perhaps a miniseries to finish, like the TV equivalent of Monty Python’s Mr Creosote’s “wafer-thin mint”. On a shamefully regular basis, my television threatens to turn itself off, menacingly counting down, almost as if it’s judging my multi-episode gorging (“Still watching Love is Blind? Go to bed!”). I’m a lost cause, though going by the Radio Times findings, be it Ozark, The Bear, Squid Game or anything else, I’m not alone.
Most are aware that The Great Binge evolved from streaming: when Netflix et al arrived slamming up entire series, terrestrial channels followed suit. Now when series such as Happy Valley or Succession release single episodes, when people have to wait (gasp!) a week, it causes shock waves. It feels outrageous, a personal affront, tantamount to a human rights issue.
Well, maybe not, but does a restaurant tell customers to leave after the starter and return in seven days for the main course? Do musicians play gigs incrementally? Do movies stop in the middle? Perhaps consumers should decide how to watch the television they pay for. Then again, it’s become a mark of prestige to release episodes singly. For the viewer, it can feel exciting (chic, retro) to “savour” a series in instalments, to be forced into old-school “water-cooler” moments, to have our spoiled, perma-demanding selves disciplined.
Like it or not, the era of the classic day-of-release TV binge may be coming to an end. The all-too-necessary Hollywood strike will have affected volume, necessitating a rationing of content. Beyond that, and despite the Radio Times statistics, there’s the sense that viewer attitudes may be changing. That people are exhausted and bored by relentless content, much of it stale or (whisper it) rubbish. That the classic TV marathon is en route to becoming a tad passé. Is this true – is box set fatigue upon us?
If so, it could be a good thing. Aren’t TV binge-watchers like any other addicts – scrabbling around for our next hit? I could make an argument as to why, alone among the art forms, television is subject to such snobbery: why people are never nagged for over-indulging in music or films, admiring too many paintings, even following too much sport. But perhaps innocent British people should be stopped before they become, well … me. Inveterate binge-watcher I may be, but I’m not pretending it’s aspirational or pretty.
• Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist
