n.
A period of excessive indulgence spent watching previously broadcast episodes of a TV show.
—binge viewer n.
Example Citations:
Binge viewing is transforming the way people watch television and changing the economics of the industry....Now, technologies such as on-demand video and digital video recorders are giving rise to the binge viewer, who devours shows in quick succession—episode after episode, season after season, perhaps for $7.99 a month, the cost of a basic Netflix membership.
—John Jurgensen, " Binge Viewing: TV's Lost Weekends: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303740704577521300806686174.html," The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2012
Whereas those who missed out on what all the initial fuss was about with Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones..., and Dexter are able to catch up with past seasons on DVD—an immersion course of binge viewing—and bring themselves up to speed in time for the next season's debut, fully conversant with the workings of Walt's woefully understaffed meth lab, say, or the latest trend lines in zombie migration.
—James Wolcott, " Prime Time's Graduation: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2012/05/wolcott-television-better-than-movies," Vanity Fair, May 1, 2012
Earliest Citation:
The PVR allows you to pause live TV, record programmes with a simple touch of a button, watch the start of a programme you've selected even while the end is still being recorded, and assemble every episode of Coronation Street or The Simpsons in a week, or a whole series of 24, no matter which channel they are transmitted on, for binge viewing sessions.
—Nick Higham, " Digital videos hard to shift: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2289794.stm," BBC News, October 1, 2002
Notes:
The broader sense of this term—that is, a bout of excessive viewing of any cultural product (think: films at a film festival)—is quite a bit older:
Vancouver's Fringe Festival makes its fourth appearance Sept. 9-18....In total, there will be more than 600 performances over the 10-day schedule, in 11 locations.
This kind of cultural binge viewing clearly has appeal.
—John Masters, "Fringe Frenzy," The Toronto Star, August 28, 1988
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New words. 2013.