Binge Watching versus Weekly Cable TV

With the introduction of Netflix and other streaming platforms, binge watching has been the new way of watching television for the past couple of years but can this model continue to survive?

In a typical TV show, an episode is run weekly with the main story spanning across the season but the episode is focus on another shorter story.

Only at the end or a few scenes will include the actual overarching story for example White Collar, a series about a con-man working with the F.B.I, to help solve criminal cases that involve white collar crimes like forgery.

In each episode, there are new or returning criminals taking the centre stage of the episode but you can see hints of the overarching story in the episode and more specifically at the end as a cliffhanger.

While this allowed the series to go on for many seasons, the actual overarching story can be summed up in a single season. However, this does not represent the entire industry like the critically acclaimed show, Breaking Bad where a chemistry teacher starts to get involved in the drug business but every episode builds up on the last.

Moreover, a good comparison between shows are CW DC comic shows and Netflix Marvel shows. The Flash is a show about a forensic scientist getting hit by lightening, giving him super speed, while Daredevil is a show about a blind lawyer with his other senses heightened after an accident that made him blind and went on to learn martial arts.

While both shows received a lot of praise from their fans, they have similar traits but Flash is adapted for the t.v screen like White Collar while Daredevil is designed for binge watching so the story is more to the point and filtered.

The benefits of binge watching shorter run seasons like Daredevil, manages to convey the emotional impact of the series without filter and allow the audience to choose when to watch the episodes. The problems with this format is, it eliminates the anticipation of the next episode like a weekly based series and spoilers are more readily available online as soon as the show is released.

In terms of health, binge watching can be unhealthy due to sitting in the same place for hours at a time without moving about but like everything else, moderation is the key to staying healthy.

Personally, allowing the audience to choose when to watch the series and avoiding commercial breaks makes binge watching way more attractive but waiting a year for the next instalment of the series seems better than waiting a week for the next episode.

With the introduction of Disney Plus, there is a lot for streaming platforms customers to choose but the cost of keeping several streaming memberships may be too much to maintain over time, therefore, a possibility of bundling all the streaming platforms into one like cable TV.

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