Binge Watching TV Series

At 50+ -- giving a time frame for historical reference -- watching TV was a true pass-time.  I may have watched a lot of TV at a younger age, but during the time of broadcast television, if you were busy "living life" then you simply missed the TV show you wanted to watch.  So, if a TV show was important to you, let's say... [coughing] STAR TREK [finish coughing].  You were likely to adjust your life style so you could watch that show.  You also weren't able to watch the show if you missed it until reruns which occurred either through rebroadcasting, seasonal down times, post season reruns and complete reruns.  So if broadcasting in your area was limited, you simply didn't get to watch your show.  Even early cable services was a programmed platform that didn't have the on-demand features that they have now.  So you really looked forward to the times when you could watch the shows you loved.  It was also rare that you would get to see an episode more than once.  

rebroadcasting - a popular show had a scheduled broadcasting time likely during prime time (7-11pm), e.g. ST:TNG was Monday 7:30-8:30 an awful time slot.  If memory recalls, later in the week on Saturday at 11pm CBS re-broadcasted the episode from earlier in the week.   So the TV Guide was a must have in the home.

seasonal down times - even like today when a season is in progress they will run 4-5 new episodes 5 weeks in a row.  Then the MLB World Series would start or other special event.  So broadcasting companies would program a rerun instead of competing with the World Series or production would take a break and come back a month later.  During this time they would either have special productions or reruns of episodes from earlier in the season. It would almost never be from a previous season.

summer time reruns - during the summer, broadcasting companies would show episodes from the most previous season.  You could catch up on episodes you missed or shows from other networks that were competing with a show you preferred to watch from another network. 

complete reruns - later in broadcasting history, networks would take advantage of super popular series like M*A*S*H* and they would have a non-prime time slot to air these shows from previous seasons again.  There was a reason the above reruns were only in season; it had to do with advertising dollars and actor contracts.  Only extremely popular shows could attract the advertising necessary to pay for actors' royalties and airing expenses.  Remember advertising dollars were they only way networks made money to pay actors and pay for expenses.  Now digital technologies are capable of tracking views which pay for actor's royalties.  So every time a show would air, the actor would receive a royalty.  So unless the show was popular it would be difficult for niche shows with a small but cult-ish following to take hold.

So the creation of the VCR "seemed" so liberating for many reasons:
1. recording a scheduled program made it so you didn't need to be home to watch your show,
2. you could FAST FORWARD>> through commercials (a HUGE time saver),
3. watching the first-time released version, and
4. archiving your beloved shows so you could watch them again without being at the mercy of the network's programming based on popularity.

Recording

Copyright Law took into consideration the desire for people to live their lives but still get to watch TV shows that were only available at certain times.  This was called time-shifting.  It was perceived that the VCR would allow people to live their lives and still watch the shows they would miss at a later time.  The networks and government couldn't have imagined the propensity people would have to watch TV shows over and over again.  Once the VCR was created people could record their shows to watch at a later time, but the explosion of sales of blank VHS / Beta tapes wasn't simply due to the creation of home movies, it was because people recording the shows and movies they watched on TV to watch more than once.  People could really watch the things they wanted to without being restricted to the programming of a network.  If didn't feel like watching anything that was on TV, I could watch a show I really liked even though I had seen the episode before.

Recording also allowed for another phenomena.  Networks would often produce and program their shows on popular nights when they thought different demographics of people would be home.  Saturday morning cartoons for instance when kids were home from school.  Cartoons weren't shown at another time back then.  Early Sunday night movies and family shows - Disney capitalized on this time slot.  Networks also tried to compete by airing popular shows during preferred time slots to attract viewers to their network.  While networks still competed in their programming, the VCR now allowed  people to record a show on one network while watching a show on another network.

Recording also allowed for another phenomena, you could actually watch an hour long show in ~45 minutes because you could fast forward through the commercials. Even with fast forwarding, you would still see a synopsis of the commercials showing the product and promotion of the name brands. This was true for both broadcast-television services (open airways with an antenna) and cable-television services if you recorded during the programmed time slow.  At the time cable television offered 2 primary advantage over open airways transmissions.  One, the quality of viewing was better.  The analog signal of open airways was subject to interference from weather and electrical signal interference causing a 'snowy' picture, which happened regularly.  Cable signals were sent across a cable and no longer needed an antenna reducing to eliminating this kind of interference.  Two, you now had access to specialty stations like ESPN, HBO, etc. also you had access to TNT and other stations that were outside of your local area.  There was usually an added fee for these, but the "basic" broadcast of the main networks and your local stations was available.  The cable through which this technology was being delivered required the used of an adapter to your television.  Companies started to make "cable-ready" televisions and VCRs which would allow your cable to be plugged in directly to your TV or VCR.  Early in the history of television a home would have but 1 TV.  It was uncommon to have more than 1.  Over time as the price of TVs and VCRs became lower, a home would often have more than one.  Early on, cable was just a new way to carry the signal into your home.  So cure encryption and blocks didn't exist back then.  Once the cable entered your home, the signal could be shared to your other TV's simply by adding a splitter.  Cable ready TVs and VCRs didn't require the cable box for the basic networks.  You needed a cable box for the specialty stations.  Given the way this technology worked, codes were transmitted that were assigned to each broadcast.  So soon VCR technology was enhanced to utilize the show code making it easier to record the shows you like.  From time to time networks would change the night of it normal broadcast due to special events.  So instead of recording the state-of-the-union aired when your show normally aired, the VCR wouldn't record.  So instead of setting up your VCR to record a specific time slot, you could program using this code (which by the way was published in the TV guide).  Then it didn't matter when the show was scheduled to air, the VCR would start and STOP recording when the show was actually aired.  This had an unintended effect to paid programming.  The VCR would not only start when the show came-on and stop when the show went-off, but it would start and stop at EACH commercial break because the actual show was transmitting this code - NOT the commercials. So recording a show in this fashion would effectively eliminate the commercials all together from your recorded show; you didn't even have to fast forward through the commercials.  Now a single VHS tape recording in SLP mode (typically 6 hours) could hold 8 1-hour episodes instead of just 6 or 4 movies instead of 3.

Making an Event out of Watching Your Shows 

We all have heard of Super Bowl parties.  A whole industry has grown around this.  Groups of people getting together to watch and enjoy and partake in the togetherness of this one time event: catering for parties, sales of paraphernalia for the parties, etc. Even commercials during the Super Bowl have become a specialty in and of themselves.

Pop culture makes even everyday shows a special time among our fellow groupies of particular shows.  People talk about the show afterwards... "did you see that 11 year old on America's Got Talent last night?"  "Did you see Sosa/McGuire's home run in last nights game." "Did you see the new Game of Thrones." Making an Event out of aired shows extends to pop culture following of shows. Star Trek fans have gotten together since the 60's to watch the show with a group of like-minded friends.

My friends and I used to watch Star Trek the Next Gen together while we were in college.  In a common area where first-come-first-server grants control over the program that was watched, we would actually have someone go to the rec room early enough so we would be sure to gain control of the TV. So when Star Trek came on, we would be able to watch it.  

Not so many years later after college where we would no longer be fighting for screen time in a common area since the TV was in our own home, we would still gather as friends to watch a show we loved watching.  My roommate and I would watch X-Files and invite friends over to watch with us.  We could have recorded it to watch together at a time of our convenience, but we made it a point to get together when it was being aired to take part an event.  It was fun and exciting.  It was something to look forward to.

So unless we were "making an event out of a show" or knowing it was on right now and "couldn't wait until later to see it", it would take less time to watch a recorded show.

To Be Continued and Cliffhangers

Shows as entertainment started as a diversion from everyday life like going to the movies for entertainment.  It was a one-of.  Even weekly aired television shows were a weekly one-of.  The story or program would run its course and by the end of the show the story came to a conclusion.  Next week there would be a new story and a new conclusion.  From time-to-time, a good story might take longer than the allotted time slot and it would be "to-be-continued" until next week of course at a crucial moment in the story that would leave you hanging and you couldn't wait until next week to see how it ends.  Part of the this was a ploy to get you as a viewer to come back and watch again next week.  But if you loved the show you were going to watch anyway.   There is something to be said psychologically for the increased enjoyment that comes from anticipation for what is to come.  Being a weekly event you rationalized the wait... that's okay, we'll see it next week.