The Effects Quarantine Had TV Viewing
Melanie Ascoli
Staff Writer
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From the months of about March to August in the year 2020, the entire world experienced what it feels like to live through a pandemic and an extended quarantine. When left to their own devices without the companionship of others, people turned to entertainment for their sense of comfort.
Specifically, the likes of TV shows and movies are what people turned to most during the global lockdown.
According to
The Hollywood Reporter, “people spent over 170 billion minutes streaming content” in the first few weeks of quarantine. This is far more than ever seen and history and there is an obvious reason. When left alone at home, unable to leave, people find their escape in the
comfort of fantasy TV and movie worlds.
For many people, quarantine changed the way that they view and stream television. The
Bloomberg Opinion article titled “Subscribing to Netflix is No Longer a Choice”, says that over the months of quarantine, Netflix has faced an extreme rise in subscriptions, and this goes for other streaming services as well.
With week to week television being unavailable, most
Americans, as well as the rest of the world, have turned to streaming services to get their daily content.
“Quarantine kind of gave me a new perspective on watching TV because like a lot of others, I relied on TV the most during quarantine to get entertainment,” Junior Taylor Foley said. “Eventhough things have relatively gone back to normal, my TV habits from quarantine have stayed even though I didn’t watch much of it before."
For a long period of time during the shutdown, content on almost every social media site, including but not limited to Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok was related to television. Shows like
The Tiger King,
Outerbanks, and
Avatar The Last Airbender gained immense popularity due to them being released in quarantine.
Content on social media sites reflects this as it was almost
impossible to go a day without seeing some sort of outside content about the shows because so many people watched them, including a lot of people who, in other circumstances, would not have watched these shows.
The many months of social isolation that the world endured resulted in a kind of television renaissance where TV show ratings skyrocketed as well as streaming service subscriptions.
This time period will have a lasting effect on the entertainment industry, as well as the people who consumed the media. Corporations have begun to change their strategies and content and the people’s streaming and binging habits during quarantine will continue to impact the way they consume TV after the fact.