(Survey was conducted amongst a UK representative sample of 2,421 men and women, 18 years+, and of 2,023 Americans aged 18 and older.)

A new online study commissioned by Netflix has shown that in the UK, conventions rule the roost with less than 4% of those asked believing it's fine to spoil programmes for another viewer.

Orange is the New Black / Credit: Netflix

This is a major difference to those in America, 76% of who say spoilers are a fact of life.

A massive 82% of Brits insist they've never cheated or watched ahead on shows they enjoy with a friend or partner, and over half (58%) admit they feel guilty if they do spoil a major plot twist. This compares to the 37% of Americans who would feel guilty.

Netflix then collaborated with Grant McCracken - an author and cultural anthropologist who went into the living rooms of viewers across the UK and USA to get an in-depth understanding of their individual viewing behaviour.

House of Cards / Credit: Netflix

His research found three stages of spoiling, and currently Brits do their best to stick to Stage One:

Stage One: Contained and Coded; "At this stage the majority of people take care to try not to spoil."
Stage Two: Share Aware; "Where the emphasis shifts to the 'spoilee' to protect themselves in order to avoud spoilers by sidestepping social media."
Stage Three: Uncensored Spoiling; "Where spoiling becomes a way of life with social media providing the rumour mill as has been the case for shows such as Orange is the New Black and House of Cards, to name a couple."

“The UK has a rich history of making great TV. And over the past few years, writers and showrunners from other countries have started creating complex and morally challenging TV, too,” says McCracken. “This new and improved TV is forcing a change in the way, the urgency, with which we talk about TV. TV has, in effect, become more provocative of spoilers and more worthy of them. While Brits are still more conservative in their TV conversation, we are seeing a less censored TV fan emerging here in the UK.”

Breaking Bad

Now Netflix have come up with a microsite based on these survey findings that you may be tempted to explore...

Some of the greatest TV spoilers of all time are available on the site, but there's also a quiz for readers to find out just what kind of spoiler they are.

So go to http://spoilers.netflix.com/spoil-yourself/ and see if you can avoid temptation.

by for www.femalefirst.co.uk
find me on and follow me on

Tagged in