This undated publicity photo provided by PBS shows Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess, left, and Shirley MacLaine as Martha Levinson from the TV series, "Downton Abbey." (AP Photo/PBS, Carnival Film & Television Limited 2012 for MASTERPIECE, Nick Briggs)By DAVID BAUDER
The nation's largest cable company is offering viewers a chance to binge on many of television's most popular series during the last week of March.
The Comcast Corp.'s "watchathon" for March 25-31 serves as a grand look into what may be the future of TV viewing.
Broadcast networks generally make a limited number of series episodes available to on demand customers, but will offer entire seasons during the binge week. Customers who don't normally get pay networks like HBO and Showtime will get free access to the entire runs of series like "Homeland" and "Girls."
Comcast is also trying to encourage use of its service that allows customers to watch TV on mobile devices.
Roughly 20 percent of the nation's TV households are Comcast customers.