The archive · Content & Film · Product decision · 2013
NRK's National Knitting Evening: 12.5 live hours of knitting draw 1.3 million Norwegians
NRK turned knitting into event television: a 12.5-hour broadcast that sheared a sheep, spun its wool and knitted a sweater, watched by 1.3 million Norwegians.
NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation)
What it had to solve
After the seven-hour Bergen–Oslo train ride (2009), the 134-hour Hurtigruten voyage (2011) and National Firewood Evening drew about a million viewers each, NRK project leader Lise May Spissøy proposed a live knitting marathon: 12 hours on 1 November 2013, ending with a world-record attempt from sheep to sweater.
How it works
NRK invented 'Slow TV' with the seven-hour Bergen–Oslo train journey in 2009 and a 134-hour cruise along the coast in 2011. In early 2013, National Firewood Evening drew about a million viewers to twelve hours of burning wood, so project leader Lise May Spissøy proposed the natural sequel: National Knitting Evening, a live 12-hour marathon on 1 November 2013.
The program began at 19:40 on NRK1's 'Norge Rundt' before moving to NRK2: four hours of discussion and knitting tradition, from the famous Selbu snowflake pattern to celebrity knitting bloggers, then long, quiet sequences of spinning and knitting. After midnight came the point — a world-record attempt, broadcast live from the knitting museum at Salhus.
A shearer clipped the bottle-fed sheep Guri, and seven spinners and knitters turned her wool into an adult-size sweater, racing the Guinness record of 4 hours 51 minutes 14 seconds set by Australians. The world record held, but the crew set a Norwegian record of 8 hours 35 minutes 23 seconds — on live television, with nothing edited out.
About 1.3 million Norwegians — roughly a fifth of the country's 5 million people — tuned in, and 90,000 stayed for the entire 12.5 hours. The broadcast cemented Slow TV as a genre and made headlines worldwide; comedians joked about it, and NRK kept planning more of the same.
Why it lands
- One live attempt with a visible goal turned a domestic craft into event television.
- Knitting is a national craft, so viewers watched as participants, not spectators — many knitted along.
- No script, no editing: anything could happen, and the audience decided how long to stay.
- It extended a proven format — firewood, trains, boats — by adding a human goal, making slowness the point.
What it did
1.3 million Norwegians — about a fifth of the population — tuned in, and 90,000 watched the entire 12.5-hour broadcast; NRK called it the new golden record for slow TV, and the broadcast generated national social-media buzz.
What you can take
Give the audience a shared event with a visible goal — a record attempt in a national craft — and the most mundane subject becomes appointment television; the lack of editing is the appeal.
Since then
NRK celebrated the ratings as 'the new golden record' for the format: 1.3 million viewers and 90,000 who watched all 12.5 hours. Slow TV continued with an 18-hour salmon-fishing broadcast and reports of a 'day in the life of a snail' in development. International media — from the BBC to the Wall Street Journal and LA Times — covered Norwegian knit-TV, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel joked about it, and the genre inspired imitations abroad.
Sources
- Over 1 million valgte strikking
- Norsk rekord i strikking
- Wait for It: Norway's Slow TV Revolution
- 12 hours of televised knitting? Must-see TV in Norway
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