After scoring one of the biggest ratings shocks in Australian TV history last summer with The Ghan – a three-hour television event depicting little more than a train travelling from Adelaide to Darwin – SBS is doubling down on the Slow TV phenomena this summer, with a string of new, mesmerisingly long programs announced today.
The government broadcaster unveiled their Slow Summer lineup of programming, which is set to takeover both their main channel and sub-channels SBS Viceland and SBS On-Demand all throughout this coming January.
After The Ghan hauled in a staggering 660,000-odd viewers this past summer, SBS is going all-in on slow TV, commissioning a pair of new local long, long, long-form productions, as well as bringing in two from overseas to complete their January programming block.
On the local front, the broadcaster will air specials on The Indian Pacific rail journey from Perth to Sydney and The Kimberley Cruise boat ride traversing from Broome to Darwin.
Bolstering that will be a pair of internationally-sourced Slow TV specials: All Aboard! The Canal Trip, which covers one of England’s most historic waterways in the Kennet and Avon Canal, and South, a spectacular overland trip extending from Auckland all the way to New Zealand’s south island.
Those four showcase events will be supplemented by an encore screening of The Ghan, which will be shown in its entirety on SBS Viceland come January 26th.
The slow TV broadcasts will see each journey presented in condensed, 2-3 hour format in primetime each Sunday in January on SBS’s main channel, before the entire, unedited journeys (running up to 18-hours in duration) will be aired the week after on SBS Viceland.
The first journey, The Indian Pacific: Australia’s Longest Train Journey, is scheduled to air on Sunday, January 6th at 7:30pm.
Strap yourselves in, mates. It’s gonna be a slow one.
