Norwegian public broadcaster to show church services regularly

"We want to make church services more accessible to everyone. When we broadcast on TV, even those who have hearing problems will be able to catch the content because we will subtitle the programmes", says Gudbjørn Bondhus, a producer at NRK to the Christian daily Dagen.

In the past, NRK has only broadcast televised church services on holidays. Now, six pentecostal congregations will receive fixed cameras, which will be controlled remotely from NRK 's studio in Trondheim. Only one person will be present as a link between NRK and the congregation. "We have looked for priests who have good communication skills and congregations with good musical abilities", says Bondhus. This reports the Norwegian journalistic platform Journalisten.no.

Neutral

Although Christian newspapers, such as Dagen and Vart Land are quite happy with the initiative, other organisations are not so pleased. In an op-ed in Vart Land, the Norwegian Human-Ethical Association argues that, as a public broadcaster, NRK should be impartial. "When the state's TV channel gives a selected religion such advantages as it does today, it does not lead to an open-minded society. It leads to the opposite, a closed society. We need an ideologically neutral state, including an ideologically neutral national broadcaster, to look after all the citizens in an ideologically open society."