British Airways to Offer 'Slow TV' -- Hours of Repetitive Footage Aimed to Sedate British Airways passengers in need of a nap will soon have the option to zone out on hours of footage of people knitting, walking in the park and feeding birds.
By Geoff Weiss
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Need to catch some shut-eye on your next long-haul flight? Ditch the Ambien. Instead, a new British Airways in-flight entertainment initiative entitled Slow TV is aiming to lull users to sleep through hours upon hours of repetitive video footage.
Programming is slated to include people knitting, walking in the park and feeding birds, reports Bloomberg.
The venture will kick off, however, with a seven-hour documentary entitled Bergensbanen, depicting a snowy train journey through Norway in real time. That film, produced by NRK -- the country's largest, state-owned broadcasting company -- was a breakout hit, with one in every five Norwegians having viewed at least a portion of the program.
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"It fits perfectly with the wallpaper-style footage people find mesmerizing," British Airways' on-board entertainment manager, Richard D'Cruze, said of the footage. He compared it to the way that people like to watch the trajectory of their flights via mapping screens. "There's a hypnotic, calming and entertaining quality to Slow TV that is perfect for in-flight entertainment."
Slow TV will be available on British Airways' 787 Dreamliners to Toronto and Newark as well as its A380 superjumbos to cities such as Los Angeles and Hong Kong, Bloomberg reports.
The Slow Television movement is said to have kicked off in Norway, where audiences seemingly can't get enough. The enormous success of Bergensbanen was followed up by another documentary tracking a 134-hour ship journey, which was viewed, at some point, by half of the country's population. Other hit features have included eight hours of a burning fireplace, 18 hours of salmon swimming upstream and five hours of people knitting a sweater.
