Comcast: Binge Watching Helps Boost Live Ratings

PHILADELPHIA: Comcast's second annual week-long Xfinity Watchathon broke VOD records, and in the process helped to boost ratings for live airings of shows such as Game of Thrones.

Comcast offered its Xfinity cable customers on-demand and streaming access to complete runs of numerous series during the week of March 31 to April 5. Andy Hunter, the company's VP of programming, says that there was a correlation between the binge-watching event and improved live ratings for several series.

Comcast customers used Watchathon to catch up on Game of Thrones in advance of the season four premiere. As a result, the live ratings for the premiere were 17-percent higher in Comcast households than in non-Comcast households. Additionally, 675,000 viewers watched the premiere on Xfinity On Demand within the first three days, besting the national audience by an additional 10 percent.

The second season of Fox's The Mindy Project returned from hiatus during Watchathon Week. Live ratings for the return episode were 60-percent higher. The post-Watchathon episode even had a ratings lift in Comcast households, of 83 percent.

The latest episode of FX's Archer aired March 31 and had a 78-percent live ratings increase. NBC's Chicago Fire got a boost of 30 percent in live ratings. The latest episode of NBC's Grimm was up 65 percent in live ratings.

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey saw a gain in its live ratings of 27 percent post-Watchathon. NBC's Parks and Recreation had a 49-percent ratings lift.

According to Comcast, the three most binge-watched series during the Watchathon were Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and The Good Wife.

"We knew Watchathon Week 2014 would be a huge hit with customers—they watched nearly 50 million hours of shows over seven days—but the question we wanted to answer was whether all this binge-watching would have an impact on ratings?" Hunter wrote in a blog post.

"The verdict is in and for shows like Game of Thrones, The Mindy Project, Archer, Chicago Fire, Cosmos and Parks and Recreation, it’s clear that Comcast customers not only caught up on all their favorite episodes but their binging led to a massive surge in the live ratings of those same shows post-Watchathon."