Breaking Bad, House of Cards Top TiVo Binge List

SAN JOSE: Binge-viewing is the "preferred method of consuming entertainment content," according to a new survey of TiVo subscribers that also found that Breaking Bad and House of Cards are respondents' most binge-worthy shows.

TiVo Research and Analytics' Spring 2014 Binge-Viewing Survey says that 91 percent of respondents list bingeing as common viewing behavior. Forty percent of those surveyed had binged within the last week and 69 percent within the last month. A key driver is audiences wanting to catch up after hearing about a show after episodes have already aired. In addition, 29 percent intentionally put off watching a show until they could watch the entire season at once.

"When television seasons began in the fall and ended in May and the menu of great TV programs was shorter, viewers could use summer reruns to catch up on missed episodes of their favorite shows," said Jonathan Steuer, chief research officer at TiVo. "Today, though, the menu of available television fare has expanded to include thousands of channels, original programming from broadcast, cable and over-the-top sources and year-round premieres. It is now literally impossible for viewers to see all the shows they enjoy when they are first broadcast, and there's no 'summer break' when viewers can catch up. But thanks to the control over cable, broadcast and OTT content afforded by TiVo, and to the proliferation of streaming services like Netflix, binge-viewing has rapidly become common practice."

TiVo also found that people are engaging in "super-binges," where an entire season (or more) is watched over multiple days; 75 percent of respondents reported doing this. When asked which programs had been binge-viewed, 35 percent listed Breaking Bad and 29 percent House of Cards.