Binge viewing is all the rage these days. When a legend like Sir Anthony Hopkins watches the entire Breaking Bad series in a couple of weeks, you know the world has a problem turning off the TV. But this year’s CES will play host to three TV fans looking to take their binge addiction into the history books, attempting to break a Guinness World Record by binge-watching nearly 87 hours of TV in front of a live crowd in Vegas.
The TiVo sponsored event will feature the company’s own Roamio DVRs, which will allow the super-bingers to watch everything from broadcast and on-demand content, to Netflix and Hulu. In order to break the record, they’ll have to best the previous holders, who watched 86 hours and 37 minutes straight of The Simpsons, in an eye-scorching series burnout that must’ve been epic to behold.
The latest contestants will be doing their binging from a manufactured living room set at TiVo’s CES booth, so lucky for us, any outbursts, freak-outs, or binge-induced psychosis will play out in front of a live studio audience, as it were. The event starts at 7 p.m. January 6th. You can also watch the contestants to see if they crack from TiVo’s live twitter feed, or on daily posted video’s on Youtube. But hey, unlike the current record holders, at least they’ll have some serious variety to keep them sane for the attempt. And let’s face it, these days, 87 hours of binging sounds more like a long holiday weekend than an arduous marathon of record-breaking proportions. A lot of us have been training for this event for years, we just take a few hours to sleep at night.
Rules for the record attempt allow for the participants to take only a 5 minute sleep/bathroom break for every hour of viewing. If you’re doing the math, you know that’s 7.25 hours of break time. They can eat, drink, and flip channels while watching the screen, but unlike your weekend excursions, no reading, or phone use will be allowed. TiVo staffers will be monitoring and timing the event, and TV and radio host Chris Cashman will be emceeing for the bloodshot viewers as they attempt to stare down the flickering small screen into history.
