Despite watching the show Friends on cable television first, I feel more familiar with its presence on an OTT platform. I feel more comfortable ‘binging’ it on Netflix than watching limited episodes with constant advertisements at a fixed time on Comedy-Central. 

By understanding that television content and television set are no longer intrinsically linked, Netflix abandoned the idea of linear television scheduling through technological developments that recognize binge-watching as its central characteristic, reorganizing television and how television viewing is structured (Jenner, 2018b). As digital television is marketed and consumed in terms of its potential to “purify the connective tissue of the schedule, removing advertisements, promotional material, and other pollutants” that might distort a seamless viewing experience, Netflix’s success lies in its design-based affordances that explain, market and use bingewatching as a structuring concept (Jenner, 2018a). For example, its recommendation algorithm regularly presents viewers to programs that matches the individual’s tastes, establishing an entrance flow (Jenner, 2018a). At the end of each episode, viewers have a brief pause before the next episode begins automatically, giving them the option to continue watching or return to the menu. If they choose to watch the next episode, the credits are usually removed, allowing the viewer to pick up where the previous episode left off, strengthening the insulated flow (Jenner, 2018a). While it might be claimed that providing viewers the option to resume playing or not interrupts the flow, it also highlights the binary between a passive and active audience, positioning Netflix’s audience in the latter, healthier dynamic (Samuel, 2017). Its automated algorithms also work in the background to recommend new content based on prior viewing selections, while the option to ‘Continue Watching’ allows the viewer to resume the previous flow of content. Thus, by enabling its users to adjust undesirable attributes of traditional viewing by allowing them to choose when and what to watch, in a selected language with no commercials, at a chosen pace, and at a suitable time, it highlights the preference for technological convenience and the contemporary viewing experience’s transition away from TV broadcasting into a new era of viewer-centred flow dominated by meta-data protocols (Jenner, 2018a).

Sources:

Jenner, M. (2018a). Introduction: Binge-Watching Netflix. In: Netflix and the Re-invention of Television. Palgrave Macmillan, pp.109–118. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94316-9_6. 

Jenner, M. (2018b). Introduction: Netflix and the Re-invention of Television. In: Netflix and the Re-invention of Television. [online] Palgrave Macmillan, pp.1–31. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94316-9_1. 

Samuel, M. (2017). Time Wasting and the Contemporary Television-Viewing Experience. University of Toronto Quarterly, 86(4), pp.78–89. doi:https://doi.org/10.3138/utq.86.4.78. 

-Navya Gupta (33711097)