https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476417704055 Television & New Media 1–7 © The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1527476417704055 journals.sagepub.com/home/tvn Article Watching Watching: A Review of the New York Times’ Digital Platform for TV Viewers Eleanor Patterson 1 Abstract This review critically analyzes the New York Times’ (NYT’s) digital platform for TV viewing, Watching (https://www.nytimes.com/watching), and considers how the NYT is trying to use television criticism to produce a commodity audience in the era of peak TV. Keywords The New York Times, Watching, peak TV, digital enclosure, convergence culture, television criticism The New York Times’ (NYT’s) new television and film recommendation platform Watching (http://www.nytimes.com/watching) initially told users to log in to sign up with the phrase “Get the most out of your screen time with movie and TV recommen- dations, news and commentary from the New York Times experts” on its login page. Experts in exactly what, we are not told, I like to think their business cards read: Screen Time Experts. Now, the login page has become a generic pop-up window, but I have screen shots preserving this ephemeral moment in the ever-shifting history of NYT’s attempts to stay relevant in a post-print era. Watching is an interactive site designed to curate streamable watchlists of television programs and films for users via their computer, tablets, or phones. To me, Watching seems like a calculated attempt by the NYT to cash in on the “peak television” zeitgeist. The term peak television was coined by John Landgraf, president of the U.S. cable channel FX, in 2015, to describe the current high levels of television content produc- tion that supposedly “overwhelm” the public with viewing options (Littleton 2015). 1 University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA Corresponding Author: Eleanor Patterson, Department of Communication Studies, University of Iowa, 127 Becker Communication Studies Building, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. Email: eleanor-patterson@uiowa.edu 704055TVN XX X 10.1177/1527476417704055Television & New MediaPatterson research-article 2017