Thursday, February 21, 2013

Norway plans 12 hours prime-time television a fireplace

OSLO (Reuters)-Norwegian public television plans to broadcast a fireplace burning for 12 hours straight from Friday night, with specialists of firewood by providing color commentary, expert advice and a bit of mentorship.

"We'll talk about very nerdy topics such as burning, slicing and stacking the wood, but we will also have cultural segments with music and poetry," Rune Moeklebust, a producer for the State broadcaster NRK.

"It will be very slow but noble television."

Moeklebust had the idea for the show from the wild success of a book of firewood by Lars Mytting, firewood celebrity bigger than Norway. His book "Hel Ved", which means strong character in English, is a pun because ved also means "firewood".

Mytting, guest on tonight's broadcast, it sold about 130,000 copies of the book last year, a huge number in a country of 5 million people, with its editor claiming that only "fifty shades of grey" has sold more copies during the recent holiday season.

NRK is no stranger to quirky programming.

In 2011, and 134 hours non-stop to a cruise ship sailing up the Norwegian coast to the Arctic, the world record for the longest continuous TV program en route to bagging.

At one point 600,000 people tuned in to watch that program with 3.2 million people, or more than 60 percent of the population, glued to the screen at some point.

And front transmission of an eight-hour train journey from Oslo to Bergen was so popular, NRK had to repeat.

"People in Norway have a spiritual relationship with fire," said Moeklebust. "Fire is the reason that we're here, if there was no firewood, we couldn't live in Norway, would freeze."

How will the chimney in evaluations?

"More people will tune more on a normal Friday night," said Moeklebust.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)


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