‘Slow TV’ concept spreads to U.S. — would you watch 13 hours of knitting?

Have you ever turned on the TV and thought, “This is just too interesting”? If so, production company LMNO has a solution for you: Slow TV.

“It doesn’t compete for your attention,” Lori Rothschild Ansaldi, senior VP of development at LMNO, told New York Post of the slow TV concept. “In a world where we have this many channels and every channel has a docu-soap about some outrageous personality who lives unapologetically and sort of yells at us, as television viewers… This was just the opposite. This one allows you to watch and just sit back and relax. Not in a boring way but in a really ‘that’s different’ sort of way. It allows you to breathe.”

Although the thought of watching hours upon hours of a train traveling through the countryside, firewood burning or people knitting may sound like psychological torture to some of us, the concept has proven popular in Norway. Just last month, 26 percent of Norwegians tuned into a channel broadcasting 13 hours worth of speed knitting.

“It stands out, it is so different from everything else on TV. I think that in itself is an important reason [for its popularity],” said Rune Møklebust, director of programming at NRK, the Norwegian public broadcasting station that created the Slow TV concept in 2009. “Apparently, people love to watch a journey or a process in its original length.”

Many of us have already embraced Slow TV’s Internet cousin, Ustream. More than 80 million viewers have watched live-streamed videos ranging from puppy cams to street views. So, watching similar programs on television really isn’t a huge jump.

Right now, LMNO — which also produces The Little Couple for TLC — is vague on how Slow TV would be adapted for American audiences. However, the company says four stations are interested in the format and it could premiere as early as next summer.