Binge Watching Isn't Bad, It's All About Viewer Choice. | Big Think

So, it's interesting the term binging. At first, when people started talking about Netflix binging, I thought that would be a bad term for Netflix. It sounds very pathological, and I don't know if that sounds very healthy and fun. But it actually took hold, and we went with the flow. We didn't invent the term, but we do lead to people binging through lots of TV shows.

To us, binging is really about consumer control. It's not about someone telling you, "You only get one hour a week, and we're going to slowly parse it out of the story that you're enjoying. Hold on, our scenes from next week; tune in next Sunday at 8:00." It's not about that. It's about giving the control back to the consumer: here's the whole story, now watch as much as you want.

You know, it's been, I think, 170 years since anyone published a book. Maybe there are examples online, but it's very rare where they go, "We're only giving you one chapter, and next week we'll give you the next chapter." They give you the whole book. You can read as much as you want or as little as you want on any given day, and that's fine, and that's the way TV should be. Give me the whole freaking story, and then I can watch as much or as little as I want.

So, with that has led to some interesting behaviors. Yes, there are people when we release a show, whether a new season of Orange is the New Black comes out, or House of Cards, or Narcos, people will — there is a tiny minority of people who will just binge through the whole thing in the exact amount of time from the second we launch it at midnight California time, 13 hours later, or however many hours are in the show they'll exactly finish.

And that's a tiny percent. Most people watch two to three episodes in an evening, sometimes longer on weekends. And it really depends on the show, and it really depends on the consumer. Because what you might consider binging and what I might consider binging — because what you might consider binging and what I might consider binging could be two very different things.

Me, it could be a crazy binge to watch two whole episodes, oh my God, in one night, and you might be bingeing — it's like seven episodes in a night. If I don't go to sleep at 3:00 a.m. and I'm falling asleep in front of the TV and practically drooling on the side of my mouth, then I haven't really done a full all-out binge.