Illustrations by Tom Deason

The rate at which we consume media is getting out of hand. Content is put on a plate for us in such a way that we gorge on it. From Buzzfeed listicles to Netflix bingeing, it’s difficult to see where any fulfilment comes from when we’re constantly moving on to the next item. However, there is an alternative: Slow TV is respite from the high-octane television we’re used to, offering marathon coverage of ordinary events. Slow TV storyboards are organic and progressive, as opposed to the scene-hopping television we’re accustomed to. Very little happens, but that’s kind of the point. Slow TV offers a more subdued, introspective and personal type of experience; it’s the quiet antithesis of how content has been evolving.

Those who’ve missed Slow TV’s very steady emergence have been appropriately slow on the uptake. Since 2009, Norway has been producing prime-time television that typically lasts anywhere between five hours and five days. Norway’s inaugural Slow TV offering, Bergensbanen, was a seven-hour, minute-by- minute train journey, and it was uncharted television territory. Norway’s public broadcaster NRK considered not what would be risked by doing this, but what would be risked by not doing this. It aired the programme at prime time on a Friday night and 1.2 million Norwegians tuned in, gaining the broadcaster a market share of 15%.

“An uninterrupted timeline is just a basic way of telling a story,” explains Thomas Hellum, the award-winning television producer behind NRK’s Slow TV movement. “Sometimes content doesn’t have to be more difficult than making an engaging story. The viewer can think: what’s around the next curve? Where do we come out of this tunnel? What could possibly happen? Probably nothing will happen, but you never know.”