From broadcast to binge — the changing culture of television

Streaming has made television more accessible than ever before, but in the age of binge-watching, the art of the water cooler discussion is becoming an endangered species, writes Michael Gibbons.

THE YEAR IS 1991 and every kid in the playground is talking about one thing: The Simpsons.

Now, I lived in regional NSW and we didn’t all have access to what we called “Sydney channels”, but I hung on every word as the privileged ones who could watch Channel 10 gave us a blow-by-blow description of this amazing new cartoon.

Fast forward seven years and the same hype surrounds an even edgier cartoon show, South Park, this time shown on SBS, a channel I actually had access to.

In these early World Wide Web days, television discussions belonged to the schoolyard, lunchroom and water cooler, not internet forums, Facebook groups or TikTok influencers. The shared experience was part of the appeal. We watched together, talked together, argued together and speculated together.

While streaming has given us unprecedented convenience – and I am certainly not arguing against that – we have lost something along the way. While binge-watching is great for watching alone or with family, we lose the art of the water cooler discussion.

Users in control as streaming giants dominate TV market

As traditional broadcast TV fades into obscurity, digital services offer plenty of reasons for consumers to keep up with new technology.

Before streaming, we mostly watched our shows at the same time as everyone else and used the time between episodes to discuss what we liked, what we hated and what would happen next. This gap in availability helped drive engagement and a sense of community, depending on which shows you were a fan of.

In 2007 (2015 in Australia), Netflix introduced its "Watch Now" service and, as a result, things changed. There is much to like about a TV show dumping all the episodes of a season at the same time. Binge-watching a television series helps with narrative retention, especially in shows with a lot of twists and turns.

Personally, I am a big fan of binge-watching television series. I will even usually wait until the last episode is about to be released on a week-to-week release show before I start watching the most recent season.

Both methods of release have their benefits in the business model of modern television streaming. The episode dump creates maximum saturation over a shorter period. Netflix’s Stranger Things deployed this method with great success over the last decade, although it did split the release of the final season into two parts to keep the hype rolling.

The decision on how to release episodes tends to be particular to each streaming platform. Netflix and Stan tend to follow the binge-release methodology. Paramount+, Disney+ and Apple TV tend to favour the weekly release model. Apple will occasionally drop the first two or three episodes to whet the appetite for the experience ahead.

A week-to-week release keeps the conversation alive, encourages fans to speculate and builds anticipation for what comes next. It also helps keep subscribers longer. With six and ten-week episode runs now common, viewers often remain subscribed for an extra month or two while waiting for the next episode.

The downside of this is viewer fatigue from the extended period and it also allows more time for the critics to pick holes in the narrative. If the show is tanking, it tanks slowly and painfully. The final series of Game of Thrones suffered a little bit from this.

Two generations, one monster: The enduring power of Stranger Things

A love letter disguised as a horror series, Stranger Things became a rare cultural crossroads, where Gen X memory and Gen Z discovery collided, bonded and briefly watched the world together.

Growing up, television shows were the talk of the playground the next day, and if you had not seen the most recent episode of The Comedy Company and The Simpsons, you felt out of the loop amongst your peers. As a university student in the 1990s, it was D-Generation's The Late Show, Seinfeld, or The X-Files.

I vividly remember sitting around a computer at a party in the early days of the World Wide Web, getting a blow-by-blow description via text of the final episode of Seinfeld. This would be my first real introduction into spoiler culture. For the record, I am now firmly team No-Spoilers, but at the time of the Seinfeld party, I didn’t have the same conviction or personal investment in the program.

And the way that news of the first few episodes of the outrageous South Park spread by word of mouth just doesn’t happen anymore. It was a hot topic, with everyone asking, “Is it real?” and “How are they getting away with this?”

One of the most successful shows to capitalise on weekly discussion, Lost, predates modern streaming. I remember devouring the first three seasons of Lost very quickly, but from season four onwards, I became a devoted fan of the weekly debriefs that could be found down internet rabbit holes. I loved reading about the easter eggs I missed, such as the number sequence 4-8-15-16-23-42 that pops up throughout the show’s six seasons.

I also enjoyed the online discussion boards that broke down the meaning of different imagery, dialogue and plot points. I would have my own theories, but for the most part kept them to myself, too self-conscious. Not wanting to look silly in front of these mega fans.

A couple of great contemporary examples of the weekly release method are Apple TV’s Pluribus and Stan’s From. I waited until the week of the final episode of Pluribus before starting this innovative series. This was great for retaining all the little tidbits of information that would be important as the story unfolded.

Cancelled before the finale: Streaming giants betray with broken promises

In the streaming age, falling in love with a new series often means preparing for heartbreak.

What I did miss, though, was being able to engage with the weekly social media discussions by television commentators on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. As I follow a lot of these accounts, my algorithm served them up regularly, meaning I had to be super vigilant while doomscrolling to avoid spoilers. I did go back and revisit these once I had finished the final episode, but it didn’t feel the same. It was like I was late to the party, or no longer in on the joke.

According to Dr Ryan Dougherty, television can reduce grey matter volume, a premise I unsurprisingly refute, as a scholar in the field. To binge is to do too much of something, such as drinking, eating, or spending money. It is no surprise, then, that the term became synonymous with watching too much television.

The term “binge-watch” became so popular that in 2015 Collins English Dictionary named it Word of the Year, reflecting both its widespread use and a broader shift in attitudes towards television viewing.

No matter what method the streaming giants choose, the power in this age of accessibility is in the hands of the consumer. Want to watch one episode a week? Fine, set a day aside each week and make it Stranger Things Day. Want to binge a series so you don't have to remember every plot point over months? No problem. Just wait until the final episode drops and watch it in one go.

As I write this, I am anxiously awaiting the final episode of season four of From, carefully avoiding spoilers online before binge-watching all ten episodes over the space of a few days.

Perhaps the real challenge for modern audiences is finding ways to recreate those shared experiences that once made television feel like a community event rather than a solitary pastime.