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Nordicom Review 36 (2015) 1, pp. 95-108
Slow Television
A Successful Innovation in Public Service Broadcasting
Roel Puijk
Abstract
Public-service broadcasters are compelled to seek innovative ways to full their public-
service functions in an increasingly competitive environment. The Norwegian Broadcasting
Corporation (NRK) has been experimenting with new programme formats and cross-media
concepts. The concept of slow television was developed by the regional ofce in Bergen.
On July 16, 2011, they started a ve-day live broadcast from one of the cruise ships that
sailed up the Norwegian coast from Bergen in southern Norway to Kirkenes near the Rus-
sian border. The broadcast was a huge success. I take this programme as a case study and
provide an analysis from the perspective of innovation within public-service broadcasting.
The article addresses the following questions: 1) In what way was the programme innova-
tive? 2) How was the programme accepted and produced? 3) What accounts for the success
of the broadcast in terms of number of viewers and popular engagement?
Keywords: slow television, public service broadcasting, innovation, production, interactiv-
ity, Norway
Introduction
Television is changing – digitization, new platforms and increased competition are
undermining traditional ways of producing television. In the post-television era new
ways of reaching and engaging viewers are being sought in order to stand out in the
ever-intensifying battle to win viewers’ attention. One of the strategies that commercial
channels have used in particular is the introduction of different reality concepts in which
ordinary people participate in situations that are often unreal. Some of these concepts,
such as Big Brother or Pop Idol, gradually escalate and culminate in an event-like nale.
Unlike classic media events (Dayan & Katz 1992), these are organized by television.
Kjus (2008) coined the term ‘event-media’ for these concepts, where different plat-
forms – television, the Internet, mobile phones – collaborate and viewers are involved
in participatory activities (e.g., voting).
Much of the ongoing academic discussion on public-service broadcasting has to do
with convergence and the change from public-service broadcasting to public-service
media (cf. Lowe & Hujanen 2003, Lowe & Bardoel 2007, Lowe 2010). Content innova-
tion has been largely overlooked. Public-service broadcasters must also seek innovative
ways to full their public-service functions in an increasingly competitive environment
(Wurff & Leenders 2008). They too may engage in event media, but they are more re-
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Nordicom Review 36 (2015) 1
stricted than commercial actors are, because they are supposed to pursue democratic,
ethical and national values rather than market success.
In-house production companies like the BBC or the Norwegian Broadcasting Cor-
poration (NRK) are in a special situation. Introducing innovation may be difcult in an
organization in which continuous production is paramount (Christensen 2008). Creative
production, such as lm, is often organized by means of exible specialization (Lorenzen
2009). Whereas commercial channels obtain exibility by outsourcing production, in-
house production companies tend to develop bureaucracies that are more focused on the
production of a continuous stream of programmes. Although new internal organizational
forms have been introduced (e.g., the separation of scheduling and production, internal
markets, partial outsourcing, etc.), the existence of departmental boundaries and the
regular production of established television series tend to consolidate organizational
forms and routines (Born 2005, Puijk 2013). Moreover, the use of new platforms chal-
lenges established routines in traditional media, but when well-coordinated they can
also reinforce each other (Kjus 2008).
The present article is based on a case study of a national television event in Norway
that followed a different pattern. Hurtigruten was a non-stop direct television broad-
cast lasting nearly 135 hours and lmed from the Norwegian Coastal Express. It was a
bottom-up initiative from one of the regional ofces that had organized and coordinated
this innovative television programme with a minimum of costs. Besides fullling the
main objectives of the NRK’s public-service remit, it was highly successful in terms of
viewing gures and popular Internet activity.
The programme was unusual and could easily have failed: the proposal of such a
bizarre programme might have been rejected by the broadcaster; there might have been
technical and/or organizational problems; or the audience might not have wanted to
watch it. What were the conditions that made this innovation a successful programme?
To answer this question, I will look at the different phases of production. I start by
identifying the origin of the programme and the process that led to its acceptance. One
of the achievements of the producers at the regional ofce was that they were able to
convince the organization to devote one channel for ve and a half consecutive days, 24
hours a day, to the broadcast. The next question is: How did they organize the project
involving different departments to make a successful broadcast? The third question deals
with why the programme was a success.
Hurtigruten Minute-by-Minute – a Multiplatform Concept
The NRK’s regional ofce in Bergen developed the concept of ‘minute-by-minute’ or
slow television. On July 16, 2011, they started a ve-day live broadcast from one of
the cruise ships that sails up the Norwegian coast from Bergen in the southern part of
the country to Kirkenes near the Russian border in the north. The broadcast boosted
the market share of the channel from an average of 5.3 (2011) to 36.0 per cent during
the broadcast. The broadcast was also streamed live on the Internet, enabling people
around the world to watch.
Although the viewers were clearly enjoying the programme, little happened at rst. It
recorded in real time the ship’s course from the time of its departure from Bergen until
its arrival in Kirkenes. The broadcast consisted mainly of static pictures taken from the
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Roel Puijk Slow Television
Norwegian coast, fjords, sunsets and pictures taken from the berths while the boat was
in harbour, sometimes interspersed with brief interviews with passengers and crew.
As the broadcast progressed, the activity of the local population became more pro-
nounced – Hurtigruten was followed by a stream of small motor boats and people on the
shore held up signs with greetings or messages to viewers, etc. While Hurtigruten was in
harbour, locals came to watch while local bands, dancing groups and individuals staged
various performances. For many viewers, the climax was when Hurtigruten crossed the
Royal Yacht on its way south in Northern Norway. The Queen, who was prominently
visible on deck, waved and took pictures of Hurtigruten.
The programme also implemented recent developments related to the extensive use
of new media: It was streamed live on the Internet, enjoyed considerable activity on
accompanying social media (Facebook, Twitter) and a chat. After completion of the
broadcast, it could be downloaded in HD with BitTorrent technology, and data from
several sources (e.g., geo-positioning data, ratings) were published so that viewers could
use them in their mash-up activities.
Innovation in Public Service Television
According to Schumpeter, the founder of innovation studies, innovation deals with
entrepreneurial activity dened as “the doing of new things or the doing of things that
are already being done in a new way” (Schumpeter 1947/1983: 223). The economic
rationale so often seen as spurring innovation in commercial broadcasters does not
apply to their licence-based, public-service counterparts, such as the NRK and BBC.
The link between success in the market and income is weak, at least in the short term.
Public-service broadcasters are, however, dependent on politicians for their income and
they require general legitimacy. As Nissen (2006) argues, legitimacy is dependent on a
programming prole that both differentiates itself from their commercial competitors
and has a reasonable reach amongst viewers. Licence-based broadcasters are independ-
ent of ratings for their income, and therefore they take fewer risks when experimenting
with new programmes. And of course they have the advantage of avoiding what irritates
viewers most when watching television: commercials (Smith, Meurs & Neijens 2006).
Mandates like the BBC’s Charter (2006) or the NRK’s bylaws [NRK-plakaten 2012]
restrict the kinds of programmes they are permitted to produce, but both documents in-
clude statements on creativity and innovation. The public purpose of the BBC includes
“stimulating creativity and cultural excellence” (Charter §4), and “The NRK shall be
innovative and contribute to development of quality” (Article 15).
Innovation can take place at different levels, such as the level of products, processes,
organizations or markets, but these may also be interrelated. Innovation implies doing
new things and breaking with routines. This poses a series of challenges during the dif-
ferent phases of production. While it may be feasible to come up with new ideas, it may
also be difcult to get them accepted and carried out because change is often met with
resistance. New practices often require new organizational forms (Christensen 2008).
The NRK has been experimenting with new programme formats, especially with
humour programmes during the 1990s (Ytreberg 1999, Kjus 2004). They have also
developed different cross-media concepts (cf. Enli 2007, Kjus 2007, Sundet 2008, Puijk
2011). In line with organizational theory, the NRK often organizes innovation as multi-
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disciplinary projects that accommodate experimentation. Sundet, for example, analyses
the production of a video series for mobile media and shows “how the NRK managed
to establish an experimental space within the institution where international trends and
new services could be tested” (Sundet 2008: 282).
While innovations are often organized as projects, they can involve different existing
departments at the production stage. In large organizations, coordination and coopera-
tion are often easier within departments and units than between them (Pfeffer 1981).
As soon as more units are involved, coordination and non-routine ways of working
become challenging. Smooth working relationships can be vitiated by differences in
values, priorities and budgets – tendencies that have also been recognized within media
companies (McQuail 2005).
In cross-media projects, the different platforms have different functions in sup-
porting each other (Philipsen 2007). How the platforms are organized and the content
coordinated is essential to eliciting a response from the audience. But coordination of
different platforms is also challenging. In his analysis of the production of one of the
NRK’s rst major cross-media programmes, Greatest Norwegian, Kjus (2007) points out
that professionals from different media had different ways of thinking and working that
clashed. Others too have highlighted different ways of thinking and routines between
established broadcasting media and online media (Erdal 2007).
Because Hurtigruten was such a successful innovative production, the main ques-
tion to be answered concerns how they coped with these challenges during the different
phases of idea creation, planning, organization and realization in order to identify the
factors that contributed to the success of this production.
Methods
The present article is based on a case study. Case studies are valuable when studying
phenomena in depth. To study programme innovation, case studies are particularly ap-
propriate for determining how the organization tackles an innovative programme that
diverges from the established routines of production. As mentioned, Hurtigruten was not
only a creative concept developed within one of the NRK’s regional ofces, but also an in-
novative production involving several departments and platforms. By using a non-routine
case, we can shed light on how internal processes work in the face of the challenges of
innovation as well as how different elements are composed for the receiving audience.
The main method used was qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of inform-
ants. I interviewed the main actors involved in the project: the Project Leader and the
Head of Programming at the Bergen ofce. The Head of Programming described his
role as that of executive producer, but they often worked as a team, such as when they
visited various departments to invite people to participate in the project and during the
broadcast itself. Furthermore, I interviewed the Commissioning Editor responsible for
factual programming and children’s programmes and a representative of the broad-
caster’s new media section at the NRK’s headquarters in Oslo. I also gathered addi-
tional information in the form of ratings, the television programme itself and the chat
that accompanied the live streaming (including Twitter messages). Of course without
direct research on the viewers, my analysis of the question of why people watched is
somewhat more subjective.
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Roel Puijk Slow Television
Creativity and Innovation: What’s New?
Several external actors acknowledged Hurtigruten to be an innovative programme.
Guinness World Records recognized it as the “Longest live TV documentary broad-
cast”. The producers received the Gullruten Award for the most innovative television
programme in Norway. In addition, the Norwegian part of UNESCO’s Memory of the
World programme has included the programme (Kulturrådet 2012).
These features indicate that Hurtigruten was a successful innovative programme, but
what exactly was new or innovative? Even though it was a complex and challenging
production, existing production technologies were used. Moreover, the Internet solu-
tions were based on existing technologies that were used as adaptive innovations. More
original – at least on television – was the ‘minute-by-minute’ concept, though here too
forerunners can be found.
When asked for the background story of Hurtigruten the interviewees referred to a
television programme about the train journey between Bergen and Oslo (Bergensbanen),
which was also produced in Bergen and broadcast in November 2009. The programme
was part of the celebration of the Bergen-Oslo railway centenary. This seven-hour
programme documented the whole trajectory, and despite the fact that it had been pre-
recorded, the broadcast followed the train schedule. Each time the train went through
tunnels archival material from the railroad history was shown. The NRK’s channel two,
NRK 2, broadcast the programme and it proved to be a success with ratings beyond all
expectations: some 1.2 million (out of the Norwegian population of ve million) watched
part of the programme. The NRK did not provide any special Internet follow-up, but the
programme elicited a great deal of comment on Twitter and Facebook.
The success of this programme inspired the producers to make an even more ambi-
tious programme. Their preparations of the Hurtigruten reected several experiences
from the Bergensbanen project. While editing Bergensbanen, they realized that the next
programme would have be live and interactive: they would need to be able to communi-
cate with people during the trip, to engage them and facilitate their participation while
the broadcast was on the air.
The live coverage would present technical challenges, but they decided that it would
as far as possible be live, without pre-edited material and pre-arranged content: only
pictures of landscape, harbours, together with a few interviews with passengers, crew
and bystanders in the harbours. As the Project Leader explained:
This [indicating a picture of mountains, sea and sunset] is a beautiful picture that
can be shown for a long time. But we decided that this [pointing to a picture of the
gangway of Hurtigruten] is a beautiful picture too.[ …] When we are docked in
the harbours of Bodø or Tromsø for four hours, this picture should be shown for
as long as it takes to arouse your curiosity and you start to distinguish the details.
We should resist the temptation to produce a regular broadcast in all the harbours,
which normally we would have done by filling the programme with hours’ worth
of television content. (Project Leader, 22.05.12)
As regards the product, the main creative achievement was that the programme negated
the main tendencies in television programmes: the programme consisted mainly of
overview pictures of the landscape accompanied by ambient sound, the editing pace was
extremely slow, there was no narrator and virtually no dramatic development. What was
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Nordicom Review 36 (2015) 1
shown was shown in real time, without ellipses and without adding additional material
in the form of performances. Although real-time broadcasts are used in live coverage of
televised events (e.g., live coverage of the Tour de France), owing to the long periods
involved and the lack of external or prearranged attractions, the Hurtigruten broadcast
was more akin to observational forms like CCTV or the live web feed of Big Brother.
As for technological innovation, the production involved a range of cutting-edge
technologies, not previously used by the NRK. The live streaming with ‘rewind’ facil-
ity presented a new challenge and this was the rst time that the NRK had ever used
the combination of broadcasting with geo-positioning. The chat, Facebook pages and
Twitter account are existing applications.
How to Realize a Crazy Idea?
In order for large organizations to carry out creative projects, they have to develop
not only new ideas, but also new organizational spaces. Organizational routines are
often geared towards continuous production, but not innovation. In this case, it was a
bottom-up process where individuals at the lower levels initiated innovation. We can
conceptualize this as an ‘intrepreneurial’ activity (Bessant & Tidd 2011:272). Intrepre-
neurs use existing organizational and bureaucratic structures to realize new products
(programmes). The main question is how the existing structures interact with the intre-
preneurs and their ideas.
The production process can be split into different phases. Because the NRK is an
integrated production company, all phases and actors are internal, but the different parts
and actors are involved in the different phases. We can distinguish two main phases:
1) Acceptance: The conceptual phase where the idea is created and pitched at the actors
controlling the economic and technical resources necessary for realizing ideas – in this
case the creation of the concept and the dialogue with the Broadcasting Department
(also called Broadcaster).
2) Production: the actual realization of the allocated resources, where the plans are
transformed into programmes. Here different competencies and material resources are
mobilized and coordinated.
Acceptance
The Hurtigruten programme was a follow-up of the successful Bergensbanen, which
involved the same people at the regional ofce. The fact that a milieu outside the NRK’s
television centre in Oslo pitched this programme is perhaps no coincidence. As the
Project Leader explained:
We probably felt we were in an underdog position […] many of the fixed schedules
are produced in Marienlyst [the NRK’s headquarter in Oslo], where the Culture
Department has its budgets, the Factual Department its budget […] and they could
plan within this budget […]. For many years we have been living off selling ideas
for single programmes. […] Our culture is characterized by the ongoing develop-
ment of new ideas. (Project Leader, 22.05.12)
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Roel Puijk Slow Television
The Head of Programming rst contacted the Broadcasting Department by telephone
to air the idea and a written application was then made, but the real decision was based
on a series of meetings between the regional unit and the Broadcasting Department.
The Commissioning Editor compared their broadcasting model with that of the BBC:
[…] you cannot just base these decisions on a piece of paper alone. Thus there
were meetings and discussions and that is the way we work all the time. […] We
work with something we call the ‘dialogue model’, and that is a bit different [from
the BBC model]; it is not as if the commissioning editors have all the power and
decide that this one and this, but not this, are accepted. That is not the way we
work. [.…] It is clear that the ‘dialogue model’ we have implies that we decide
on our commitments together [with the production departments] and that we find
good solutions through discussion. It may be time-consuming but it is more robust
and works better for everyone. (Commissioning Editor, 22.06.12)
The NRK’s Broadcasting Department only consists of a few people and the commission-
ing editors rely on extensive dialogue with the production units within the organization.
Likewise, Hurtigruten was developed as a dialogue between the Commissioning Editor
and Head of Programming/Project Manager.
The Commissioning Editor argued that it was important not to dismiss such an
unusual idea but to weigh it up with a positive attitude. She argued that they thought it
was important to consider what would happen were they to turn it down. According to
the Head of Programming, they rst discussed whether the NRK should produce this
programme. After some discussion they reached a consensus: the NRK not only should
make the programme, but they had an obligation to make it.
This is a project the NRK not only can do, but must do, because we are the only
ones who can do it. (Head of Programming, 15.06.12)
Apart from the positive reaction to the project, a combination of factors contributed to
its acceptance. The Commissioning Editor stated that the remit of the NRK was the main
reference point, but that other factors were also involved:
We judge the programme from the point of view of scheduling in relation to the
channel. Can we occupy this channel for five and a half days? Is that possible
and how does it fit in with the other programmes we broadcast? Is it financially
viable? That is always a question. And we judge it in relation to the audience and
whether it will be received well. And it is undoubtedly within our remit because
no one else would think of doing this. A commercial channel cannot do this.
(Commissioning Editor, 22.06.12)
Because there were no expenses for performances the costs were extremely low. As the
Project Leader mentioned: “For the price of two hours of documentary they got 135
hours”. This amount ‒ roughly 250,000 € ‒ was paid in part by the co-producers from
the neighbouring Nordic countries.
Because of the lighting conditions, the broadcast had to take place during June when
the midnight sun shines all night. During this off-season period the broadcaster did not
need to take the established schedule into account:
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Nordicom Review 36 (2015) 1
This was low season on NRK 2, the second half of June. So the regular slots had
their summer break. It would have been different had it been in February, for ex-
ample. Then it would have been considered in relation to the regular programmes.
There would be many programmes that we would not have taken away. We also
consider what we take away from the audience, because it is not as though everyone
necessarily wanted to watch Hurtigruten either. (Commissioning Editor, 22.06.12)
The Head of Programming mentioned that there was little risk during the summer season,
given that the ratings are in any case low. In addition, the Broadcasting Department had
requested theme evenings and innovation.
When we pitched our concept to the Broadcaster it was accepted not only be-
cause a wish for theme evenings on NRK 2 had been expressed, but also because
the Broadcaster wanted innovation. The Broadcasting Department had made it
clear: innovation, both entirely new things but also innovation within established
schedules. (Head of Programming, 15.06.12)
To sum up: even though the proposal for a continuous broadcast of 135 hours seemed
outrageous at rst, it turned out to t rather well into the broadcaster’s planning process.
The programme accorded with the NRK’s guiding principles, in particular Article 14
(“The NRK shall strengthen Norwegian language, identity and culture”) and Article 15
(“The NRK shall aspire to achieve high quality, diversity and innovation”). The costs
were low, as was the risk of not reaching as many viewers as they would have done
with alternative programming. After winning the broadcaster’s support and securing the
necessary funding, the next phase was the initiation of the production process, which
involved various people and departments.
Production
Many departments were involved in the Hurtigruten project. NRK’s new media section
was involved from the start. They had been involved in the Bergen Banen project after its
completion and they went on to plan the cross-media part of Hurtigruten – the web-page
including net-stream, chat and metadata connecting the various elements live. The Head
of Programming and the Project Leader spent considerable time travelling to inform
different departments in Oslo and regional ofces throughout the country. Because they
coordinated the Norge Rundt programme (a national programme containing reports from
all of NRKs regional ofces), they already had existing connections that could be used.
Participants for the project were then recruited. The recruitment was ad hoc, and only
the most enthusiastic were selected. The Head of Programming and the Project Leader
felt their role as outsiders allowed them to be exible and effective when organizing
the project:
Most joint projects that are decided from the top use lots of energy on cooperation
itself, but here in our project it just happened because we chose and asked people
whom we knew had expert knowledge and who liked the project. Our rule was to
pick only those people who smiled when they heard about the project. (Head of
Programming, 15.06.12)
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Roel Puijk Slow Television
The Project Leader agreed but also suggested that top management’s stress on an ethos
of more cooperation in recent years may have facilitated this:
I think that this coincided very much with a general change in the NRK, with the
appointment of Hans Tore Bjerkås [General Director, 2007-2013], his slogan:
“One NRK”, the urge to cooperate. These were things that we had been told a
couple of years earlier – that we have to cooperate and stand out as one NRK to
our public. We went through a period with a lot of internal competition and many
internal divisions, which was perhaps necessary to control the budgets and to get
a grip on certain things, but what Hans Tore Bjerkås did, as I experience it, was
to make us relax more so now we should cooperate […] In terms of cooperation
I think that Hurtigruten would have been harder to accomplish four or five years
ago. (Project Leader, 22.05.12)
The project received support from all parts of the NRK. The broadcast was backed up
with announcements and promos on all NRK platforms.
During the broadcast a group of 23 people was aboard the ship, including the Head
of Programming, the Project Leader and the Engineer from the new media section. The
latter explained that they worked in a more exible way than usual:
During the Hurtigruten project everyone aboard was multi-functional. There was
no-one who did only one thing – everyone was able to perform most functions.
The whole project was characterized by the fact that people throughout the NRK
system were recruited and these were people who wanted to be included and who
were very multi-functional and could accomplish many tasks. So the job was
carried out by a small on-board team. (Engineer, 30.5.12)
The broadcast was live, and because the premise was “reality should reveal itself”, little
content was prepared in advance. When plans for the broadcast were made public, they
received many requests offering local performances along the route. The Project Leader
made it clear that they were interested in knowing what people were planning locally
but refused to commit. The whole broadcast was largely improvised, as they had no
commitments and only showed the voyage and what might have been arranged locally.
In this way, they avoided the content-production aspect of the broadcast, with all the
resources (both human and nancial) normally spent on this.
What Makes a Success?
The producers were surprised by the amount of interest generated by the programme.
Well, I expected we would have at least as many viewers as we would normally
have on NRK 2. That was our point of departure: if we can make that, it is good
enough. In some ways that is a success. I had even imagined that there might be
a few more – because this is so special that it draws a bigger audience because of
its originality. (Head of Programming, 15.06.12)
Despite low expectations, the programme was undoubtedly a huge success for NRK 2. At
their highest the ratings exceeded 800,000 viewers on the rst two days and around one
million the last three. Only the most popular weekend programmes on the main channel
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Nordicom Review 36 (2015) 1
NRK 1 reach these gures. Similarly, Internet activity greatly exceeded expectations.
The chat spawned a great deal of activity, with some 40,000 responses posted over the
ve-day period (including Twitter messages). The programme’s Facebook page was
also exceptionally active.
Some of the best-known fjords and mountain landscapes in the country were featured
in the broadcast. This in itself ensures spectacular television images, especially in HD
quality. One of the 11 cameras was a stabilized super-zoom camera (Cineex) that pro-
duced impressive pictures. It included the longest day of the year, and the days became
longer as the boat travelled northwards; during the last three days, the sun did not set,
permitting some magnicent shots of the sun just above the horizon. The programme’s
popularity can also be interpreted as a reaction to increasingly faster television and can
be related to the slow-food/slow-city movements.
Factors specic to Norway also played a part. The programme may also be said to res-
onate with the value of nature in the indigenous culture (Eriksen 1996) and Norwegians’
interest in ordinary people. Nature programmes and programmes on the whereabouts
of ordinary people from different parts of the country draw relatively large audiences.
In addition, Hurtigruten is a powerful symbol. The ships are combined cruise ships and
ferries that have been travelling along the coast of Norway since 1893 and are well
established in the Norwegian consciousness. These ships are a familiar part of the long
Norwegian coast, sailing at regular hours on a daily basis, and they have traditionally
been an important means of communication.
The viewing gures indicate that at the outset many people watched long stretches
of the programme. Some reported that watching had a hypnotic effect on them. During
the third day of the broadcast (a Sunday) many people watched during daytime. People
also frequently reported that they stayed awake in the middle of the night to see their
place of birth or other places that occupied a special place in their memory.
The programme received much support in the NRK: it was promoted heavily on the
NRK’s channels. NRK1 and the NRK’s Internet site referred to it both before and during
the broadcast. This cross-promotion, where different outlets are used to mutual benet,
is a traditional form of cooperation within media businesses (Dailey 2005).
Although it is hard to document without further evidence, I suggest that the success
of the broadcast can be largely attributed to the possibility of interactivity. Three forms
of interactivity can be distinguished.
1) Participation on television
As the live broadcast lasted several days and Hurtigruten followed an established time-
table, people living along the coast knew when their places would be shown. On the rst
day there was little activity, but successively more and more activity could be noticed,
with people on shore waving or dressing up and small boats accompanying Hurtigruten
along with people holding up placards. Activity increased during landings, particularly
north of Trondheim (after the second day). Hundreds of people came to celebrate and
brass bands and other small orchestras played, along with other performances. In short,
a host of popular cultural activities accompanied the arrival of Hurtigruten. The cameras
of course captured and transmitted this rather carnivalesque atmosphere. This ‘self-
generated’ content was one of the success factors: It attracted viewers and contributed
to a form of interactivity during the broadcast.
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Roel Puijk Slow Television
Although the producers had not prepared any entertainment as part of the broadcast,
the public along the route provided spontaneous entertaining content that comple-
mented the picturesque shots of nature. It is safe to suggest that this in turn attracted
more viewers in a positive feedback loop, for one never knew when a funny, touching
or entertaining element would occur, but something interesting was bound to happen
at some stage. Of course the dramaturgy of the broadcast did not follow an Aristotelian
or Hollywood model, with exposition, climax and dénouement, but the series of small-
scale performances represented minor attractions along the way thereby contributing
to the programme’s popularity.
2) Participation on the Internet
Another way of participating was through the Internet, in particular through the chat
that ran parallel to the live streaming on nrk.no/hurtugruten. With 40,000 postings
during the ve days, this chat was active throughout, but it rose from 3,400 posts on
Friday the 17th to 11,000 on Tuesday the 21st. In general, the activity on the chat
correlated with the television ratings (ρ=0.71). The chat included several themes, but
especially interesting in our context is the amount the production team contributed to
the chat. They were very active in responding to questions, providing information about
different aspects of the production, the voyage and the places on the way. The chat
proves that they responded to viewers’ remarks about the broadcast, for example, by
adjusting the music they were playing. Thus, the interaction between the chatters and
the production team inuenced the television programme itself. This kind of audience
participation is not uncommon in contemporary television production: the voting ele-
ment in many musical competitions and other reality programmes, the on-screen chat
in SMS-Television and the posing of questions through phone-in allow audiences to
inuence television programmes (Enli 2007). Hurtigruten provides another instance
of this interactivity.
3) Participatory context
A third way was the participatory context provided by the nrk-beta blog (nrkbeta.no).
This is an ongoing popular blog managed by relatively young NRK employers engaged
in developing technology and new media. This blog is followed by Norwegians inter-
ested in technology. It covers a range of topics including new gadgets, background in-
formation on programme production, discussions about Internet content distribution and
piracy. The blog relates to the media largely in terms of a digital-culture attitude, such
as holding open dialogues between producers and consumers, using crowd-sourcing,
sharing programmes through bit-torrent les, and using Creative Commons licences.
This reects Jenkins’ description of ‘convergence culture’ (Jenkins 2007). The blog-
gers work in the new-media department of the Broadcasting Department and they were
involved in the Hurtigruten project in different ways. Before the broadcast, the bloggers
shared some of the production challenges and asked their readers for feedback and ideas.
They were responsible for the new-media aspect of the project (streaming, meta-data,
interactive map, chat, etc.). Once the broadcast had nished, they distributed different
data about the broadcast (ratings, clicks, GPS positions) and made the whole programme
available for downloading. They also initiated a competition for the most creative use
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of the data by viewers. This resulted in some mash-ups, with new combinations of maps
and ratings, time-lapses and more.
There is of course a marked difference in the numbers of people involved in the
three interactive forms: thousands gathered on the landing places, the harbours and the
coastal area to admire the ship. They vastly outnumbered active chatters. Many lurkers
dropped in and looked at the Facebook pages. According to the NRK’s Facebook opera-
tors, there were 12 million visitors on the Facebook page and some 57,000 shares. This
indicates that television and the second screen – in part simultaneously – comprised
the same experience, with different platforms supporting each other. The more active
interactivity in the form of mash-ups was of course much more limited, but it may have
engaged some of the younger people who do not make up the NRK’s main market but
who nevertheless function as opinion leaders amongst their peers.
Conclusions
Given the competition with commercial channels, public-service broadcasters have to
update their content to full their public-service obligations. Large in-house production
companies have to handle innovation in different ways from companies, all of whose
production is outsourced. They may establish separate projects outside the established
structure, create space for innovation within existing departments or outsource parts of
their production. Hurtigruten followed none of these models – it was initiated bottom-up
in a peripheral part of the organization, accepted by the controller, even though it made
an exceptional claim on broadcasting time, and involved cooperation between different
media and departments. The case study approach used here serves to highlight both the
different success factors involved in the different production phases, while at the same
time indicating the interconnections.
The NRK appears to be receptive to innovation. Hurtigruten was a unique media
event where many new ideas came together as a unique product – unique enough to be
sold as a television format abroad (see: http://www.nrk.no/kultur/1.11341016). In many
ways, this programme ran counter to the main tendencies in competitive television today:
the tight scheduling of programmes (even on public-service channels), the tendency to-
wards constant drama and/or entertaining content, fast editing and serialization. We can
sum up the main success factors of Hurtigruten at the level of the project, of the NRK
and in relation to its content and appeal for its audience (cf. Habann 2006).
At the project level, it is an example of ‘intrapreneurial’ activity (Bessant & Tidd,
2011: 272). The somewhat peripheral position of the project initiators in the organiza-
tional structure seems to be advantageous – they were forced to be creative and ght
for their proposal. Having a track record for good ideas of course helped to convince
the broadcaster of the validity of their project.
Another success factor at the project level is the producers’ active networking with
different departments, arousing enthusiasm for the project and recruiting appropriate
competencies into an interdisciplinary team. The team’s enthusiasm and exibility in
performing different tasks were also crucially important factors.
As far as the NRK was concerned, exibility and cross-promotion were key success
factors. The Broadcasting Department as a central decision-maker in the scheduling
process proved to be open to unorthodox ideas. The fact that the initial question was
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transformed from “can we do this?” to “can we afford not to do this?” shows a non-
bureaucratic attitude and exibility in application of the ‘dialogue model’, which is
favourable to innovation. At the same time, we also saw that other factors (alternatives,
timing and cost) contributed to the positive decision.
Further, the backing that the project received inside the NRK, which resulted in com-
prehensive promotion on the NRK’s other channels and technological support for other
platforms, was a sign of the NRK’s support of innovative programmes. Internal emphasis
on cooperation also contributed to the organization of this demanding production.
The straightforward ‘minute-to-minute’ ethos (recording events as they evolved rather
than arranging them) had implications on several levels. It meant that planning could
be focussed on nding technological solutions to get a stable signal from a moving ve-
hicle, while no energy and resources were expended on arranging performances. This
resulted in vastly reduced nancial outlay, more manageable production conditions, and
ultimately more space for ordinary people to play a part.
Interactivity and cultural resonance played an important role in attracting viewers.
The cultural value of the coast, Hurtigruten, nature and folk life accounts for the suc-
cess of many nature and folksy programmes in Norway. Normally serialization enables
television to establish long-term commitments in their audience. In this case, the com-
mitment was limited to one period, but the period in question was long enough to arrange
an event that dominated the public consciousness and allured many Norwegians back
to the television set and/or the pc-screen. Recognizing well-known coasts and harbours
or exploring new ones, watching popular activities and having the chance to interact at
the same time attracted many viewers.
Our interviews indicate that not all of this was the result of conscious planning – the
actors involved had not anticipated such extensive popular support. But the success in-
spired them to experiment with other slow television concepts – another boat and train
journey, salmon shing, knitting, etc. While these enjoyed a certain popularity none
were as popular as Hurtigruten, partly because they did not have the same scope and
composition, and partly because they were not the rst. Successful innovation remains
easier to explain than to predict.
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Roel Puijk, Ph.D., Professor, Department Social Sciences, Film and Television Studies,
Lillehammer University College, roel.puijk@hil.no
