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Production studies have become popular over the past decade. Recent studies have analysed, amongst other things, innovation, management strategies and the effects of convergence on editorial processes. There have only been a few studies that have analysed what happened inside media organisations in the earlier transformative stages (outside the UK and the USA). This paper analyses how the Norwegian public service broadcaster (NRK) adapted to the loss of its monopoly and the beginning of competition during the mid-1980s. It provides a window into how the flagship of public service, the Enlightenment Department, dealt with the new situation. If one follows the production process of the main programme of the department (with the revealing working title 'Flagship') from its conception to its realisation as a weekly programme broadcast in prime time, this reveals how innovation at the time was restricted by organisational arrangements, internal values and external pressures. The programme makers included many elements that are still today considered to be advantageous in factual programming (humour, dramatization, popularisation, serialization, recognition, and even interactivity). Along the way several of these were changed: what had started as a proposal for a documentary series turned into something that was predominantly a discussion programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public-service broadcasters are compelled to seek innovative ways to fulfil their public-service functions in an increasingly competitive environment. The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) has been experimenting with new programme formats and cross-media concepts. The concept of slow television was developed by the regional office in Bergen. On July 16, 2011, they started a five-day live broadcast from one of the cruise ships that sailed up the Norwegian coast from Bergen in southern Norway to Kirkenes near the Russian border. The broadcast was a huge success. I take this programme as a case study and provide an analysis from the perspective of innovation within public-service broadcasting. The article addresses the following questions: 1) In what way was the programme innovative? 2) How was the programme accepted and produced? 3) What accounts for the success of the broadcast in terms of number of viewers and popular engagement? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]