At an estimated walking speed of 3km/h slow TV is slower than ever. Combining the Norwegians love for hiking, with the format of slow TV, and Norway’s most loved adventurer Lars Monsen, we get “Monsen minutt for minutt” (Monsen minute by minute).
– Fellow project manager, Håvard Jenssen, had worked with Lars Monsen on his previous adventures and was curious about going live. I had worked with slow tv since 2009 and was curious about how off-road it was possible to go on a live journey. The collaboration became a perfect match, project manager Thomas Hellum explain.
Customised technology
There are plenty of technical challenges when hiking and producing live television. The equipment normally used for similar productions had to be scaled down and transformed into portable backpacks that are light enough to carry. To make things more difficult they also had to be powered by battery and water proof.
– The two biggest problems this time was making the backpack and making it fitted for this type of journey. Getting the TV-signal live out from areas with no internet connection was another issue we had to deal with. It took two years of planning in total, Hellum explains.
The project was a wild experiment, but with years of planning, specially-built production gear, people spread out in the area to create a so-called “mesh network” - we were good to go. To produce the show we had 22 people from NRK on location, but many more participating from behind the scenes to get everything to run smoothly.
You can read more about the technology used to produce “Monsen minute by minute” here.
Increase in tourism
So why bother producing a show like this, where so much can go wrong?
– We wanted to take the viewer on a journey and to give them a true experience of being there, hiking themselves, says Hellum.
And we didn’t suffer too many technical failures. In fact, the end result turned out to be a huge hit with the audience. Approximately two thirds of Norway’s population tuned in to watch parts of the 100-hour broadcast. The tourism boards in some of the regions we visited even reports an increase in visitors since the show aired from their area and members of our audience.
– I really think we managed to inspire people, and show them the beauty of our country, Thomas adds.
New Norwegian slow TV experiment: hiking minute by minute
In 2018 the creators Thomas Hellum and Håvard Jenssen envisioned taking the viewers out in the wilderness. To national parks, miles from the nearest road where there’s no electricity and no internet. Only pure nature - and a group of trekkers who hike a daily distance of 10-15km.
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