Norway’s NRK TV network is lining up its next Slow TV offering: five hours of live knitting. Bizarrely, Slow TV is proving a huge hit in Norway after the network showed a cruise ship sailing across the Arctic coast for five-and-a-half days in 2011 and a fire burning for 12 hours in February this year.
The latest offering, which will be shown at prime-time on Friday, 1 November, is an attempt by Norwegian knitters, yarn spinners and wool shearers to beat Australia’s world record for producing a sweater – from the first stage of shearing the sheep to the final stage of a person wearing it.
Norwegian journalist Kristian Elster said that it may sound like boring TV, but the ratings are quite good so there’s obviously an audience for it. He added that it gives viewers the chance to be in contact with people that you wouldn’t normally be in contact with.
Australia holds the current world record of four hours, 51 minutes. The Friday 1 November broadcast will kick off at 7.30pm local time with the participants shearing the sheep. The network will then film the spinning of wool to yard before the knitters take over for the finishing straight. They hope to have the sweater complete before midnight.
Australians are likely to be quaking in their boots.