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NORWAY EXPLAINED

EXPLAINED: Norway’s obsession with ‘slow TV’

Slow television is a genre popularised by Norwegian broadcasters, and it remains popular in the Nordic country some 15 years after it first gained international recognition.

Published: 20 August 2024 15:17 CEST
Pictured is a television set.
Slow TV is a Norwegian concept which has gained popularity elsewhere. Pictured is a television set. Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash

What is slow TV?

Slow television is a concept which involves filming something in its entirety and broadcasting it continuously and basically uncut.

The initial idea was conceived in 2009 at a regional office of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) in western Norway.

What we know as slow TV today was born out of the idea to film the entirety of the Oslo to Bergen railway to celebrate the line’s 100th anniversary.

The broadcast attracted 1.2 million viewers at its peak and lasted seven hours and 16 minutes. 

Given the high viewership figures, the broadcast was considered successful, and more programmes were commissioned.

In 2010, the entirety of the Flåm Line and Bergen Light Rail were televised. The former attracted 40 percent of television viewers during the hour-long broadcast.

READ MORE: The people and stories behind some of Norway’s common street names

The peak of slow tv

The pinnacle of slow television, in terms of viewership, length and scale, was probably Hurtigruten minute by minute – a coastal voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes.

Cameras broadcast the 134-hour voyage between Bergen in the west and Kirkenes in the north in June 2011.

Eleven cameras broadcast the entire journey live.

NRK2 broadcast the show, which was also streamed online. Due to it being easily available online, the show attracted a large international viewing. More than 3.2 million people tuned in to watch the voyage. Around 46 percent of the online viewers were based outside Norway.

The broadcast also set a world record as being the world’s longest live television documentary and is in the Guinness Book of Records.

In the following years, the Norwegian Language Council named sakte-TV the new word of the year for 2013.

Branching out

As a new concept, slow TV was open to plenty of interpretation and experimentation. Following the success of its travel-themed slow TV shows, NRK decided to adapt the concept to the natural world.

2012 saw the Lakseelva—minutt for minute programme, a 24-hour broadcast of the first day of salmon fishing on the Gaula River in Trøndelag County in central Norway. Some 1.6 million people tuned into this programme.

Following a few more slow TV programmes focused on some of the country’s most breathtaking journeys, 2013’s Nasjonal vedkveld (National Wood Evening) saw one million people watch a 12-hour programme on firewood, which included eight hours of live broadcasting of a fireplace.

The programme on wood was followed by a broadcast of a coastal cruise from Oslo to Kirkenes and Nasjonal Strikekveld (National Knitting Night), which depicted 12 hours of nonstop knitting.

In the mid-2010s, broadcasts of 200-minute-long history lectures, a bird feeder set up as a coffee shop, and a 60-hour programme in which 200 or so choirs sang the entirety of a hymnbook cover to cover were shown.

Netflix brought the distribution rights to several of these broadcasts.

How did it become so popular?

Slow TV has left TV producers, executives, and viewers wondering why the genre was so popular.

In 2020, NRK described slow TV as “a unique experience; the feeling of being present in real time and space.”

When it awarded slow TV “word of the year”, the language council said, “Human needs for cohesion and belonging have been put forward as a possible explanation for the success of slow-motion television.”

Slow television today

While international interest in slow TV has died down a bit, it remains relatively popular in Norway. Some 15 years have passed since its initial introduction, meaning it doesn’t generate the same buzz as it used to.

Still, slow TV programmes are still regularly made in Norway. Notable programmes in recent years include a voyage around Svalbard, located halfway between the North Pole and the Norwegian mainland, a reading of Nobel-winning author Jon Fosse’s works, and a cycling trip across Norway.

Where to watch slow TV

Thankfully, plenty of NRK’s original and most popular slow television programmes are still available to watch online.

This NRK page should have an English description of each programme made between 2009 and 2020. However, some shows will no longer be available.

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NORWAY EXPLAINED

EXPLAINED: Why so many Norwegians have two surnames

Most Norwegians you will meet will have two surnames, with this tradition dating back hundreds of years. Over time, the reason why Norwegians have two surnames has changed to keep up with the times.

Published: 3 September 2024 14:18 CEST
EXPLAINED: Why so many Norwegians have two surnames

In Norway, as in most countries worldwide, the naming system is a blend of tradition and modernity.

READ MORE: What are locals in Norway’s different regions called?

However, unlike many Western countries, where inherited family names have long been the norm, Norway’s approach to surnames has somewhat unusual roots.

The traditional three-part naming system

Historically, most Norwegians were farmers and did not use inherited family names, according to the Norwegian Interest Group for DNA in Genealogy (NIDNA), a non-profit organisation that promotes DNA as a source and method in genealogical research.

Instead, they followed a three-part naming system.

The first name was the given name of the person.

The second part, known as the patronymic, indicates the father’s first name, such as Sigurdsdatter, meaning “daughter of Sigurd,” or Nilsen, meaning “son of Nils.”

The third part of the name referred to the farm where the person was born or lived. This farm name served as a form of address and would change if the person moved to a different farm.

In this traditional system, neither the patronymic nor the farm name were inherited family names.

What changed between the 19th and 20th centuries?

A whole lot.

Before 1850, most Norwegians adhered to the traditional naming system outlined above.

However, between the mid-19th century and the early 1920s, there was a gradual shift towards using inherited surnames, especially in urban areas.

This change was formalised with the Norwegian Names Act of 1923, which required everyone to have a surname, as the The Genealogy Society of Norway – the largest of its kind in Norway – writes on its website.

Typically, Norwegians in cities chose patronymics as their surnames, while families from rural areas often opted for their farm names.

Norwegian surnames today

Just several generations ago, names often changed when people moved.

A person might have a patronymic and a farm name, such as Jon Persson Haugen, which would change to Jon Persson Skaar if he moved from the Haugen farm to the Skaar farm.

This practice was relatively common until the turn of the 20th century, when fixed European-style surnames became mandatory, mainly for census purposes but also due to streamlined tax and hospital payments, as name expert and researcher Ivar Utne told ung.forskning.no in a recent interview.

A few years back, around 70 percent of Norwegian surnames were derived from farm names, such as Ås, Li, and Hagen, while around 30 percent are solidified patronymics, like Olsen, Larsen, Hansen, and Johansen, according to the NIDNA.

As of 2018, Hansen, Johansen, and Olsen remained the three most common surnames in Norway, with about 150,000 people bearing these names. However, as more Norwegians choose unique surnames, the traditional practice of using a father’s first name as a surname – a patronymic – is gradually fading.

Figures from national data agency Statistics Norway (SSB) reveal a long-term decline in the prevalence of surnames ending in -sen.

A 2021 SSB report highlighted this trend, noting that the proportion of such surnames in the population had dropped to 19.6 percent. 

The rise of two surnames

According to the Norwegian Names Act (Navneloven), every person is required to have a first name and either a single or double surname, with the option to include a middle name as well.

In recent decades, it has become increasingly common for Norwegians to use two surnames, reflecting both the mother’s and the father’s surnames.

This trend aligns with broader societal changes in the country, where married couples often retain their birth surnames.

In Norway, a middle name is usually a surname, not an additional given name.

For instance, if a child’s legal name is Kristian Olaf Rutten Carlsen, “Rutten” could be the middle name, and “Carlsen” the surname.

First names are given names, like Ivar or Sven Kristian.

Wondering why some child names are banned in Norway? Make sure to read our explainer on the topic.

You can find last year’s overview of the most popular baby names in Norway here.

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