{"id":65651,"date":"2020-05-05T12:10:36","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T16:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=65651"},"modified":"2020-05-05T16:25:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T20:25:33","slug":"dont-blame-covid-for-binge-watching-says-brock-prof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2020\/05\/dont-blame-covid-for-binge-watching-says-brock-prof\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t blame COVID for binge-watching, says Brock prof"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you spent any of the last eight weeks binge-watching The Great British \u2014 <\/em>or Canadian \u2014 Baking Show<\/em>, you\u2019re in good company. So has Brock University film and television scholar Liz Clarke.<\/p>\n

The Professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film says people who binge-watch during social isolation can be assured that the industry is ready for them, because \u201cbinge-watching has a longer history than just the more recent rise of Netflix and other streaming sites.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re in an era of niche programming that is bolstered by the way social media works and by the algorithms that video-on-demand (VOD) sites use to show you new shows to watch,\u201d Clarke says. \u201cWe have even more control over how and when we can watch shows, which has ultimately brought us to a time when binging content seems to be the norm.\u201d<\/p>\n

This development has shifted the focus of content creators, who are well aware of the trends in media consumption, from a long-range goal of syndication to one of creating shows that can be watched weekly or binged and then rewatched, picked apart by devotees and talked about for years to come.<\/p>\n

Clarke points to NBC\u2019s The Good Place <\/em>\u2014 a sitcom that originally aired weekly but has seen a steady growth in popularity on Netflix \u2014 as an example of a show that \u201cyou can watch over and over and discover new jokes each time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the re-watchability is seeing all the threads coming together at the end of the season in a really satisfying way and thinking, \u2018Wow, I want to understand how they did that,\u2019\u201d says Clarke. \u201cWe go back so that we can see how the narrative unfolded in such a pleasurable way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though it may seem like we are in the golden age of binge-watching, problems loom on the horizon, both due to production restrictions related to COVID-19 and changing delivery structures.<\/p>\n

Clarke also notes that the rise of competing VOD services, each with their own exclusive content and cost, will soon mean people are paying as much as they were when they subscribed to cable to get all the shows they want.<\/p>\n

Clarke questions the sustainability of the Netflix model of dropping an entire season at one time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about the season for a few days and then move onto the next thing,\u201d she says. \u201cIf long-running shows are slowly replaced by shows that have a couple limited seasons, it could be a great period for new content \u2014 but it would be terrible for the long-term job security of writers, casts and crews.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the time being, though, there is no shortage of viewing material.<\/p>\n

As to what people will choose to binge-watch over the coming months, Clarke says it\u2019s a matter of knowing your personal taste and seeking out recommendations of others who share that taste.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Brock switched to online learning for the last two weeks of Winter Term due to the provincial shutdown, I was in the middle of teaching about streaming and binge-watching,\u201d she says. \u201cI asked my students to recommend shows to watch while in isolation and now I have a list that could last me until 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you spent any of the last eight weeks binge-watching The Great British \u2014 or Canadian \u2014 Baking Show, you\u2019re in good company. So has Brock University film and television scholar Liz Clarke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":65661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3319,1,5,38],"tags":[8962,153,8791,522,8958,8961],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65651"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65662,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65651\/revisions\/65662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}