Why Slow TV Became the Thing I Watch Most

In 2009 Norwegian broadcaster NRK aired the Bergen railway line in real time: seven hours and fourteen minutes of track, unedited, no narration, no music. A fifth of the country watched some of it. They followed it with a coastal voyage that ran for five and a half days, continuously, and it became the most watched programme in modern Norwegian history.

I thought it was a novelty. Then I put one on during a bad week and understood immediately.

What it is doing

Everything else on a screen is engineered to hold you. Cuts every two seconds, a score telling you how to feel, a cliffhanger before the credits, an autoplay countdown. It works, which is why you look up two hours later slightly hollow.

Slow TV does none of that. Nothing is trying to retain you. There is no plot to lose, so you can look away and come back. Watching it is genuinely restful in a way that "relaxing" television is not, because relaxing television is still built to grip.

Why it is not boring

This is the part that surprised me. When nothing is competing for your attention, you start noticing things — the light changing over a valley, the pattern of which houses have washing out, a person on a platform who glances at the camera. It rewards attention rather than demanding it.

It also restores a sense of real distance. A journey compressed into a montage teaches you nothing about how far anywhere is. Seven hours of track teaches you exactly.

Where to start

• Bergensbanen — the original railway journey. Start here.
• Hurtigruten — the coastal voyage, best dipped into rather than watched.
• National Firewood Night — yes, really; a discussion about firewood followed by hours of a fire burning. Millions watched.
• Any long-format cab ride or walking tour on YouTube gets you most of the effect.

Put one on while you do something else, or nothing else. It is the only thing on a screen that has ever left me less tired than when I started.