piksel binge viewing survey

© 2013. Piksel. All Rights Reserved. of 15

08Fall

© 2013. Piksel. All Rights Reserved.

Results of Binge Viewing SurveySeptember 2013


RESULTS

Binge viewing-- watching all thirteen or thirty hours of a series in the course of a

few marathon sessions has become something of a phenomenon over the past few

years, due mostly to the rise in streaming services that allow for this sort of

behavior. (Unlike a DVD, Netflix can be watched on any number of devices in any

number of locations.) Our survey set out to capture the behavior of binge viewers,

while probing them for some other clues as to their viewing habits.

BINGE VIEWERS

The results on binge viewing were not particularly shocking: 62% of respondents

prefer some combination of complete bingeing and “sipping”-- watching an

episode or two every few days. Of the rest, they were fairly evenly split between

dedicated bingers (17%) and sippers (16%) with 6% saying they never binge watched.


BINGER’S INSOMNIA”

And of the 94% who did binge watch, over two-thirds (69%) admitted to Bingers

Insomnia - “staying up way too late just to watch ‘the first 15 minutes’ of the next

episode of a show” they’d been bingeing on.

LIVE VIEWING ON THE DECLINE?

There was one surprising result from the survey however: an overwhelming

majority of bingers do not exclusively watch their favorite shows live: only 11%

admitted to preferring a live viewing experience, with another 6% copping to

watching “almost live” --- starting the show 10-20 minutes later so they can fast


forward and skip the commercials. Of the remaining 83%, a full 57% watched via

DVR, VOD or streaming services, with another 26% choosing “all of the above.”

There are significant ramifications for the industry if those numbers are

indicative of a broader trend. Our interpretation is that while people still watch

live TV (over 80% of the TV viewing in the US is live) they are increasingly using

new technology-- streaming, DVR and VOD-- to carve out a special time to watch

the handful of shows that they are into. They do this in order to avoid

commercials-- or at least the 5 minute commercial blocks that dominate much of

prime time TV-- and to be able to savor the show without additional distractions.

This is bad news for Twitter and other services that rely on live interaction, but

good news for second screen apps that are betting on viewers preferring to have

their additional experiences before or after the show. This includes everything

from additional or behind-the-scenes content to polls and statistics to message

boards and scenes-from-next-week.


ALL AT ONCE

In this same vein, the survey revealed that close to two-thirds of viewers

preferred the Netflix approach of releasing all episodes of a series at once (64%)

versus only 13% who preferred the traditional method of one episode a week.

(23% had no preference either way.) While this number is likely skewed due to

the fact that we are talking to an audience of self-identified binge viewers, Netflix

and other streaming services do not seem to be shying away from this practice, so

we can assume the general population holds a similarly favorable view. (Or that

Netflix is sadly deluded. But given their strong reliance on data, we’d say that’s

unlikely.)

CORD CUTTERS


The final surprising stat is that a full 20% of the respondents claimed to have

recently “cut the cord” on pay TV. Again, this number is likely skewed by the

make-up of the audience for the survey, but it does show that among this cohort,

cord-cutting is becoming more popular. What was particularly interesting about

that statistic is that it seemed to cut across all ages and income levels as well as

geographic regions:


ABOUT THE RESPONDENTS

BY INDUSTRY

While 44% of the respondents worked in the media or advertising industries

(27% and 17%, respectively) their responses varied little from those of the 56%

who worked elsewhere or were students.


GENDER

Men made up 62% of the respondents, but again, their responses were

surprisingly similar to those of female survey takers. The gender split also

remained fairly consistent across countries and age and income levels.


NATIONALITY

The majority of respondents were from the US (72%), with the UK (15%), Canada

(3%) and Australia (2%) also represented. Overall, responses came from 21

different countries including Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Ireland,

Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Slovenia, South

Africa, Sweden, Thailand and Turkey, which indicates that binge viewing is a

global phenomenon.


AGE

All ages were represented, with the greatest concentrations being 25-34 (30%),

35-44 (36%) and 45-54 (21%).


INCOME LEVEL

A similar range of (self-reported) income levels was also represented: 29% made

under $75,000, 34% made between $75,000-150,000, while 37% made over

$150,000.

VARIATIONS

Surprisingly, results varied little over all the demographic variables: adjusting for

gender, income, location and age only resulted in small variations of 5% or less.

Which further validates the idea that TV viewing habits are fairly universal. (One

exception: while 56% of Australians and 26% of Brits said they had never

subscribed to pay TV, only 9% of Americans reported that, which is is line the the

high (>80%) penetration rate for pay TV in the US.)


TV TRIVIA

The final question in the survey was a TV trivia quiz. Respondents knew what

Alice, the Brady Bunch’s housekeeper’s boyfriend’s did for a living (butcher),

what show Susan Dey starred in before she was on LA Law (The Partridge

Family), the real name of Nursie from Black Adder 2 (Bernard), what type of

animal Mike Myers’ Saturday Night Live character Dieter, the host of Sprokets,

kept as a pet (a monkey), the name of Diahann Carroll’s groundbreaking 1960s

series (Julia) and the real name of Mad Men’s Don Draper (Dick Whitman.) The

only question that stumped them was the name of the ship on The Love Boat.

(The Pacific Princess.)


CONCLUSIONS

Binge Viewing is a habit that promises to become more and more entrenched as

viewers discover new programs that interest them and watching TV in real time

becomes less and less of an imperative.

How a viewer binge watches is dependent on the type of programming and the

viewer’s own schedule: sometimes the heart is willing, but the calendar says “no”

-- family and work obligations come first. Other times, the show is compelling,

but not compelling enough to give up a few nights sleep. Our suspicion is that

serial programs, where each episode ends in a cliffhanger, account for a large

percentage of the sleepless nights that 65% of respondents reported having.

Of far greater interest, however, is the report that only 18% watch their favorite

programs live. The hypothesis we’ve drawn is that most people have a handful of

shows (two or three at any one time) that they follow religiously. The advent of

time shifting technologies allows them to watch those shows when they can

devote their full attention to the show without the distraction of friends, family,

the internet and commercials.

The ramifications of that behavior are wide-ranging and support our theory that

the future of second screen will consist of curated experiences that happen before

or after the viewer watches the show. Those experiences will be heavy on

“stories”-- everything from scenes-from-next-week to exclusive second-screen

only content to sponsored content to polls and message boards. The idea is to

give hardcore fans a special venue where they can connect with their favorite

shows and with other fans. The key is that for most, those connections will not

happen in real time via Twitter, but rather on the viewer’s own time and at their

own pace.


These sorts of second screen experiences are valuable to networks and advertisers

alike, as they allow for detailed data collection and provide a venue for new ad

units. In addition to selling ad space to outside advertisers, networks can also use

these second screen experiences to promote their own shows, moving viewers

from one hit series to the next. Given that over 20% of the ads on US television

are currently network promotions, that is already a sizable market in and of itself.

In terms of functionality, the survey results has increased our advocacy of old

school message boards: hardcore fans want a place to discuss the show in more

than 140 characters, and a binge viewer who finishes watching at 2 AM may not

have any friends up and available to join in a conversation.

The final result that caught our attention was the fact that a full 20% of

respondents reported that they had recently cut the cord and gave up pay TV.

That statistic seemed to cut across all age, gender and economic groups. While

the survey respondents were likely early adopters who are ahead of the general

population, the fact is they are not that far ahead. While we’re just seeing the very

first slivers of evidence that cord cutting may be real, that trend will speed up

quickly unless MVPDs start creating systems that rival Netflix in terms of ease of

use and overall accessibility. (On the other hand, they may not care to, given that

they control broadband access in most homes and may decide it’s just easier to

make up the lost revenue off of increased broadband fees...)

Binge viewing is just one example of the way TV viewing habits are changing a

new technology puts viewers in control. It’s up to the industry to adapt to these

changes rather than try and fight them. Every change brings with it the chance

for greater profits and loyalty. The challenge is out there. We’ve just got to take it.


For more information about Piksel and this report, contact Alan Wolk, Global Lead Analyst at Piksel.

mailto:[email protected]?subject=re:%20Binge%20Viewing%20Survey




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