The slow TV style of programming has spread. The central Dutch city of Utrecht, for example, installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets livestream viewers alert authorities to fish being held up as they migrate to spawning grounds.
In Australia, hundreds of thousands of viewers have tuned in to watch trains trundling through the outback for 17 hours on The Ghan and The Indian Pacific.
The show is produced at a distance to avoid interfering with the migration.Credit: AP
Annette Hill, a professor of media and communications at Jönköping University in Sweden, said slow TV has roots in reality television but lacks the staging and therefore feels more authentic for viewers. The productions allow the audience to relax and watch the journey unfold.
“It became, in a strange way, gripping because nothing catastrophic is happening, nothing spectacular is happening,” she said. “But something very beautiful is happening in that minute-by-minute moment.”
As an expert and a fan of The Great Moose Migration, Hill said the livestream helped her slow down her day by following the natural rhythms of spring.
“This is definitely a moment to have a calm, atmospheric setting in my own home, and I really appreciate it,” she said.
The moose have walked the route for thousands of years, making it easy for the crew to know where to place cameras.Credit: AP
The calming effect extends to the crew, according to Johan Erhag, SVT’s project manager for The Great Moose Migration.
“Everyone who works with it goes down in their normal stress,” he said.
The moose have walked the route for thousands of years, making it easy for the crew to know where to lay some 20 kilometres of cable and position 26 remote cameras and seven night cameras. A drone is also used.
The crew of up to 15 people works out of SVT’s control room in Umeå, producing the show at a distance to avoid interfering with the migration.
The Ghan was a slow TV his in Australia, with more than half a million viewers watching the train make its way across Australia.Credit: SBS
SVT won’t say how much the production costs, but Erhag said it was cheap when accounting for the 506 hours of footage aired last year.
Erhag said Swedes have always been fascinated by the roughly 300,000 moose roaming in their woods. The Scandinavian country’s largest animal is known as “king of the forest”. A bull moose can reach 210 centimetres at shoulder height and weigh 450 kilograms.
Despite their size, the herbivores are typically shy and solitary.
“We actually don’t see it very often. You often see it when you’re out driving maybe once or twice in your life,” Erhag said. “I think that’s one thing why it has been so, so popular. And then you bring in the nature to everyone’s living room.”
Hanna Sandberg, 36, began watching the show in 2019, though she didn’t spot any moose. She tuned in the following year, finally saw some and got hooked.
“You can watch them and be a part of their natural habitat in a way that you could never be otherwise,” she said.
After hours of showing an empty forest, a camera captures footage of a moose approaching the riverbank. Suddenly, slow TV turns urgent.
The push alert hits SVT’s app – “Första älgarna i bild!” which translates to “First moose on camera!” – as viewers worldwide tune in. The livestream’s chat explodes as commenters type encouragement for the animal, now making its way into the water.
“I would actually like to be a little fly on the wall in every household that watches the moose migration. Because I think there is about a million people saying about the same thing: ‘Go on! Yes, you can do it!’” Malmgren said.
Mega-fans like Malmgren, who is in a Facebook group of 76,000-plus viewers, are committed to watching as many hours as possible. Some viewers on Tuesday posted photos of their dogs and cats staring at their televisions, enthralled by the moose on the screen.
“I was late to school because I saw moose and my teacher was like, ‘What, you saw moose in the city?’ And I was like, ‘No, it’s on the TV,’” Garp Liljefors said ahead of Tuesday’s showing.
Malmgren said friends and family have learned not to bother her when the moose are on the move.
“When someone asks me, ‘What are you doing? Oh, never mind, it’s the great migration,’” she said. “They know.”
AP
