Norway is enjoying the latest instalment in what has been dubbed the world’s most-boring television.
Broadcaster NRK is showing live minute-by-minute coverage of a climb up Norway’s highest mountain.
It is the most recent chapter in the country’s bizarre appetite for slow television, which sees ordinary events broadcast in their entirety.
It has already included a 12-hour knitting marathon, 18 hours of live salmon fishing and a day-long lecture on the Norwegian constitution.
And it has proved popular: a 134-hour boat trip from Bergen to Kirkenes in 2011 attracted 2.54 million people or half Norway’s 5.2m population.
Today’s broadcast will see a NRK team join volunteers for a seven-hour walk up the 2,469-metre Galdhøpiggen mountain.
Commentators from outside Norway have appeared bemused by the format’s popularity, saying it breaks all the rules of television engagement with its audience: there’s no storyline, no drama, no script and no climax.
“The slow television concept works because of the sheer contrast to our busy lives,” explains an article lifeinnorway.net.
“It’s a chance to slow down the pace and immerse yourself in something that few other kinds of modern entertainment allow.”
