Today’s post is inspired by a tweet I recently came across from Erik Anderson:
HBO has understood the power of ‘water cooler’ television on Sunday nights for a quarter century. You only get that from a weekly episodic series. Binging will never replace the unity of everyone experiencing something at the same time.
I couldn’t agree more. Whether it was Game of Thrones in its heyday, White Lotus last year, or The Last of Us and Succession this year, HBO has mastered the art of sparking conversation. Don’t get me wrong. HBO has a strong brand. And it consistently creates high-quality, high production value original content year after year. But its true moat is its network effects, which it creates through weekly releases of episodes rather than full-season drops.
For example, all of the shows I listed above are ones I started watching after the first season aired. What motivated me to start? Hype and buzz around the shows formed through word-of-mouth—from friends to online chatter. This led to fear of missing out (FOMO) when I wasn’t watching them. And this FOMO meant I was at risk of being spoiled on social media or in conversation if I didn’t watch.
Surviving spoilers from all of those shows required intentional avoidance on the internet and in conversations with friends. Even then, I was unable to avoid some of Game of Thrones’ early season surprises.
Note: I still have not finished The Last of Us, so please refrain from spoilers in the comments
In the pre-streaming / cable era, weekly episodes were the norm. One of my all-time favorite shows was Lost. Much of what made Lost so incredible went beyond the show’s storyline and writing. The mystery and unpredictability of the show led to countless fan theories and endless conversations with friends week-to-week. It was the show that really started the online fandom of TV shows that we see today. The influx of media and user-generated content that came from Lost was only possible in a world with the weekly episodic model.
But this is no longer the case. We now live in a streaming era, predicated on binge-watching. A majority of the streaming services release the entire season of a popular show at once. This supports the ability to race through an entire season. In theory, this drives more time spent consuming content week-over-week. But what Netflix and these other networks lose out on is the water cooler effect.
Why doesn’t binge-watching drive the same virality? For a few reasons.
First, binge-watching requires a larger time commitment. While a weekly episode requires an hour of time, most seasons are 8-10 hours of content. That’s a large investment of time in a short period.
Second, binge-watching removes the weekly build-up, urgency, and anticipation. In a binge-watching world, a great cliffhanger or killer episode doesn’t hold the same gravity as you can immediately jump into the next episode. A weekly episode leads to endless theorizing and postulating in-between episodes. It leads to greater online content, focused on each episode rather than a season as a whole. Furthermore, as mentioned above, following any type of social media creates a risk of being spoiled, which acts as an incentive to watch the latest episode sooner rather than later.
Third, binge-watching makes it undefined as to where you are when you’ve “watched” a show. If you’re “watching” a show, I can’t be certain what episode you’re on, and I risk sharing spoilers if I make an assumption that you’ve seen everything in the season. This assumption is much more reliable for shows with episodes that are released week-to-week.
Even binge-watching with a significant other becomes complicated. How often has one of you wanted to finish watching a show, while the other is half-asleep? This inevitably puts you in a dilemma between satisfying your need to know what happens versus the inevitable disappointment and anger you’ll face from your partner the next morning.
This brings us to water cooler chat generally. Great water cooler conversation is low-stakes, timely and relevant, and broadly appealing. It invokes strong, passionate opinions. A new episode of a hit series checks all these boxes. We hear our co-worker sharing an elaborate theory on the latest episode of a show. And that’s what intrigues us to listen to learn more, watch the show they’re talking about, share it with someone else, and then engage in the conversation by the time the next episode rolls around.
These are the same reasons sports or movies make for great office chatter. Even more broadly, great water cooler chat illustrates our craving for community and human connection. In the case of sports, we often choose to leave our living room to watch a game in a crowded, loud space like a bar, or up in the nosebleeds of a stadium. Or for movies, we leave our house to watch it in a theater with random strangers. But it’s all for the community experience.
And in many ways, that human connection is what the weekly episode nails better than the best binge-worthy show. We can’t watch the latest episode of a show at a bar or with a group of friends each week, but what we can always rely on the water cooler discussion the next day.
While many of us work remotely or may not have a water cooler in our office kitchen (does anyone actually huddle around a water cooler?), the proverbial water cooler talk still takes place each week. It just happens elsewhere. Back in the days of Lost, I remember this happening in the hallways between classes, or over AIM chats. Nowadays it’s during lunch at the office, at the bar, in group chats, in slack channels, or on Twitter.
What HBO has figured out better than every other network is what makes humans tick. It knows that the most powerful form of marketing is word-of-mouth, and it uses water cooler conversation to keep existing customers coming back and to attract new customers. HBO is playing the long game. Its method has stood the test of time for nearly a quarter-century. I wouldn’t bet against it changing any time soon.