Slow television

Slow television, or slow TV (Norwegian: Sakte-TV), is a term used for a genre of live "marathon" television coverage of an ordinary event in its complete length. Its name is derived both from the long endurance of the broadcast as well as from the natural slow pace of the television program's progress. It was popularised in the 2000s by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), beginning with the broadcast of a 7-hour train journey in 2009.

Slow television derives from a concept by artist Andy Warhol's 1963 film Sleep, which showed poet John Giorno sleeping for five hours and twenty minutes. The concept was adapted to local TV broadcast in 1966 by WPIX, to VHS video tape in 1984 by the British company Video125, to satellite TV in 2003 by Bahn TV, and to live TV in 2011 by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK).

The latest evolution of the concept started with the NRK's coverage of the longest driver's eye view at that time, showing the complete 7-hour train ride along the Bergen Line (Norwegian: Bergensbanen) on 27 November 2009. It was followed by the live coverage of the Hurtigruten ship MS Nordnorge during its 134-hour voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes starting on 16 June 2011.

Both events received extensive attention in both Norwegian and foreign media, and were considered a great success with coverage numbers exceeding all expectations and record ratings for the NRK2 channel.

Harvard College's radio station WHRB has a tradition of broadcasting music marathons, which are referred to as "Orgies," during the college's reading and exam periods. A WHRB Orgy typically consists of an entire composer, musician, or group's musical catalog played back-to-back, although it can also consist of a similar marathon broadcast centered around a specific genre or subject. The WHRB Orgies are said to date back to 1943, when a student staffer broadcast all of Beethoven's symphonies back-to-back in order to celebrate finishing a difficult exam.

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