Maybe we do it because we hate waiting for the next episode, or because we just cannot possibly leave it at the cliff hanger. Whatever the reason, binge TV marathons are the newest craze, and everyone is doing it. Out of over one-thousand Canadians recently polled by Head Research, 81% of the respondents plead guilty to watching three or more episodes of a show in one sitting and engaging in mini TV marathons within the past year.

On average, four complete television episodes are watched straight within a week, and 4.6 during the weekend. Who might be the key indulgers of this new craze you might ask? Well that would be younger audiences under 35 years that are trailblazing this latest trend. Those aged 35 and younger said they average watching 5.4 episodes on a weeknight and 6.6 episodes on a weekend. Now seeing as a typical TV show is about an hour long that is 6.5 hours of your typical Saturday spent on the couch watching the tube.

This may just be the ultimate “can’t wait for it” syndrome affecting all the multi-screeners/multi-taskers consuming media today.  And adding further motivation, networks have stepped up the quality of their programming offerings making it all the more tempting for viewers to indulge in binge TV encounters.