Abstract

Slow TV emerged as the antithesis of the fast-edited, fast-paced tv that has developed as the dominant concept of tv in the twenty-first century. More recently, it has been heralded as the antidote to the rise of right-wing populist noise in recent years.

Whilst the early cable channels showed ambient images of burning fires or tropic fish tanks, slow tv is slightly more dynamic and deliberately edited to be relaxing as well as informative. Unlike ambient tv, it has a narrative but not all of them have a narrator. The narrative is sometimes left to the viewer to work out, such as the original slow tv show, Train Ride: Bergen to Oslo (2009). Others have on-screen captions, such as The Ghan (2013). Where voice-over narrative does exist, it is descriptive and lacking in the usual tropes of drama. This paper will argue that the defining feature of slow tv is the narrative, but that this takes many different forms.