I found out that a retro network will air 20 straight hours of “One Day at a Time” for Mother’s Day. Although I enjoyed the show, no way I’d ever watch more than a couple of hours of any program. Has anyone out there watched a single program for an incredibly long period of time, whether it be breaking news/entire telethon/rerun marathon or something else?
I don’t know if it counts as a “single program” but I’ve watched Super Bowl pregame shows from sunup until the game starts before.
I once watched the entire 7th season of Buffy the Vampire slayer that aired as a marathon. I had discovered the show a year or two earlier and had watched the first six seasons on DVD, so the timing worked out fairly well.
Back in the days before YouTube and when 24-hour music stations actually played videos, I watched entire 12-hour loops of programming a few times. Usually it was a “theme weekend” of some kind that I was interested in.
I watched a ST: NG marathon on New Years day (24hrs).
Although, I admit, I was way too hung over to actually want to look for, and pay attention to, any good programing that might have been on at the time.
I just wanted to stare at the TV and not have to use my brain and think about what’s going on with the plot line.
ST: NG fit that bill nicely as I’ve already seen every episode a hundred times. Plus it was also nice to be able to take a nap on the couch, wake up mid episode, and know exactly what was going on.
A few marathons, over the years. Aside from the ones that were largely “background noise” (like during holidays), or that I was mostly just recording (on VHS, usually. Ah, memories…), I think the longest stretch of actually sitting down and watching every minute was for AMC’s Godzilla marathon, back in 1999, which was 12+ hours, including (IIRC) the broadcast premieres of the Heisei-series movies.
Granted, I was also doing it as part of my MST3K group’s chat room regular “Home Game,” where we were riffing as it aired. There were only three of us left, at the end.
After that…probably Olympic opening/closing ceremonies. Ever since 1994, although I recorded but never actually found the time to watch most of London’s. 
No more than three hours and I’m not sure I even did that. I’ll watch all episodes of a show, but the only show I’ve ever binge watched was Weeds – because we had to get the DVD back.
I will have The Walking Dead marathon on AMC on all day and all night. They usually have one before the season premiere each year. I will also watch Mad Men marathons. Harry Potter weekend on ABC family channel? I’m there, and Lord of the Rings weekend, too. I don’t sit and watch, slack jawed, from start to finish, but it’s on as background, and I usually get to see my favorite parts.
I watched the entire second season of Homeland during a “free HBO” weekend. It was 10 or 12 hours or something.
It was so good that I actually subscribed to HBO. But the next (and subsequent) seasons didn’t even come close. That second season ended on an intensely climactic high point that for story reasons, could never be reached again. They kept trying to top it, but the show just got weird after that.
The guy, whose name I forget-- the returnee, the one whose loyalty was in question-- wore a suicide vest into the bunker with all the gummint VIPs and was just about to detonate it and blow up Capitol Hill when his cell phone rang and it was his daughter calling. That snapped him out of it. It was one of THE most intense TV moments I’ve ever experienced, and there was no way to top it. The series should have ended right there.
When the Olympics are on I will usually leave the TV on that channel for extended periods, and last time (London) I happened to be quite unwell with a lung infection so it was a welcome distraction in the middle of the night whenever I woke from a feverish dream to a bout of coughing.
Having said that, I also watched DVDs in between boring bits, when it seemed to be 72 hours of diving, so it probably doesn’t really count within the OP’s rules.
Do general elections count? I’ve had the TV on from before the close of polls until the morning. And I’ll be doing so again this time.
Our cable box will automatically turn itself off after 8 hours of inactivity. I know there have been a few times, either a football Sunday or during the NCAA basketball tournament, where the box has turned itself off while I was watching because I hadn’t changed the channel all day. But I wasn’t necessarily watching the same program the whole time.
My mother made me watch JFK’s State Funeral in its entirety - November 25th, 1963. I’m sure it was on NBC, because that was the channel that gave us the best reception.
We watched a marathon of the original “Iron Chef” on Food Network, on New Year’s Day one year (maybe around 2000). I think that was around 16 hours or so.
by watching A Christmas Story for 24 hours you can look for all the details.
Not necessarily a station, since I mostly watch things online or from my video library, but I’m an archive binger. If I’m watching a series, I tend to watch it straight through, rather than switching around, so I’m usually watching the same thing for however long I watch. Five or six hours is probably the longest I’ve ever watched at a stretch with my full attention, and that’s only when I have a new series to plow through.
When I’m sick or hurt enough to be strictly resting, I tend to put on a “comfort” show–something I’ve seen already and like and don’t have to think about much, like Shakes’ ST:NG marathon–and leave it running as I drift in and out. I think the longest I’ve ever done that at a stretch was a couple of days, but I obviously wasn’t really watching it continuously for that long.
I was hospitalized and I didn’t have anything to read or my computer. So the TV was my only entertainment. I watched more TV in a month than I normally watch in a year.
At one point, a cable channel was running a marathon of Hogan’s Heroes, which isn’t even a particular favorite of mine. But I watched seven episodes in a row.
FXX when they were showing the Simpsons marathon. The station wasn’t changed for days.
No one here watched for long stretches on 9/11? The Moon landing?
I did a marathon of Dexter for many, many hours. I had some pretty gnarly dreams that night. :eek: