Open gjesteforelesning om dansk TV-suksess

Contemporary Scandinavian television drama is a phenomenon. Few other regions have been able to produce a comparable number of acclaimed programmes. Exceeding expectations of many a critic, they were sold to countries around the globe. How did they do it?

Besides other production companies and broadcasters, it is the Danish public service broadcaster DR that keeps producing one hit serial after another. And yet, the overall conditions for the production of television drama are rather unfavourable. Denmark constitutes one of Europe’s smallest television markets, with just 2.5 million television households. Financial and human resources, as a result, are limited. The talk will take a closer look at the significant changes in the Danish production culture that have made possible its recent achievements. Important aspects that will be considered are Nordic Noir’s stylistic patterns and modes of representation, training and working methods, the impact of multiperspectivity and audience engagement as well as the role of public service broadcasting in the post-network digital age.

Tobias Hochscherf is Professor for Audiovisual Media at Kiel University of Applied Sciences and the University of Flensburg, Germany. His research interests include film and television history, television production cultures and audiovisual representations of society and politics. He is the author of The Continental Connection: German-speaking Émigrés and British

Cinema, 1927– 1949 (2011) and Beyond the Bridge: Contemporary Danish Television (2017). Hochscherf has co-edited the anthologies Divided, But Not Disconnected: German Experiences of the Cold War and British Science Fiction Film and Television: Critical Essays. He is an associate editor of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.