Election 2021: – Political legend responds:

– There will be too much entertainment and shows, too much nonsense and little concentrated politics. It’s good it’s not too heavy, as it was in my time, but you can also not move away from the political content of the debates, says Geir Helljesen to Dagbladet.

The longtime political commentator at NRK believes this has been a general trend in today’s political debates. He thinks this year’s TV debates have had a greater focus on entertainment than politics.

Among other things, TV 2’s debate last Tuesday attracted attention. The debate was marked by loud quarrels and party leaders talking in each other’s mouths. Among other things, Dagbladet described it as chaotic.

TV 2 presenter Arill Rise had to use a whistle to prevent the party leaders from speaking so intensely in each other’s mouths, as it became impossible to hear what the individual was saying. Oslo City Councilor Inga Marte Thorkildsen for growing up and knowledge was among several who reacted on Twitter.

– Dear TV 2 news, you must lead the debates, do not let there be anarchy. This is painful to listen to, she wrote.

Afterwards, TV 2 promised to change the debate, and the channel’s party leader debate on 8 September went quieter.

Chaos debate!

Politics in the second row

Helljesen is well acquainted with the history of the Norwegian TV debate. The veteran worked for NRK Dagsrevyen for 41 years and has led a large number of election broadcasts from elections in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland – and has written two books about elections in Norway. He retired after the parliamentary elections in September 2009.

He believes that it is largely required that politicians discuss their own life situations.

– It is not so much about politics as it was in my time. It’s about a lot of other things. You could say that the whole political life has become more personal, says Helljesen

– But will it not be easier to follow if it is more personal?

– I do not think it will be easier to understand politics, but it can probably be more entertaining to watch. But for politics, entertainment should come second, not politics.

Horror figures for Erna

Submitted controversial report

Ahead of this year’s election, NRK’s ​​debates have also been discussed among the media, politicians and on social media.

Dagbladet’s financial website Børsen revealed in August that the leader of the first party leader debate, Fredrik Solvang, drew an unpublished report from Rystad Energy when he confronted MDG leader Une Bastholm that it will have a negative climate effect if Norway stops using oil and gas.

The report was commissioned and owned by Norwegian Oil and Gas. Solvang did not inform about this during the debate.

The use of the report created several reactions afterwards.

Editor of the News Division in NRK, Knut Magnus Berge, responded to the criticism that NRK’s ​​contact with Norwegian oil and gas and Rystad was part of ordinary source work.

– We want to illustrate that it is controversial what is the effect of cutting Norwegian oil production. In that connection, we did research on the entire field, Berge told Børsen.

When asked by Børsen whether it is not important for NRK to state that the report they referred to was commissioned by Norwegian Oil and Gas, Berge replied:

– We could probably have informed about this better. But our point was to make it clear that this is a controversial point.

– Embarrassing

– Varying quality

News editor in TV 2, Karianne Solbrække, responds to the criticism from Geir Helljesen:

– I think political debates have always been of varying quality. The use of personal stories can also lead to politics being shed light on in practice. Which makes a debate more relevant for those who watch, says Solbrække to Dagbladet.

NRK editor Knut Magnus Berge tells Dagbladet that he agrees with his old colleague and comrade, Helljesen, that the TV debates have developed over the years.

– But I think there was more show and noise in a period in the 90s and early 2000s. Now I think the trend is going in the opposite direction. Less interruptions and quarrels are ideal, more substance. Like our public meeting in Trondheim recently, where the audience also played a central role. Our impression was that it was both substantial and serious, and that it was well received by both politicians and the public, says Berge to Dagbladet.

The MDG bomb could go off tonight

Seerfall for the debates

Since the last parliamentary elections in 2017, both TV 2 and NRK have experienced viewership for the party leader debates, figures show Dagbladet has taken from both channels.

For NRK’s ​​part, this year’s party leader debates from Bodø and Arendal had average viewership of 618,000 and 575,000 viewers, respectively. For the debate in Bodø, this corresponded to a share of 57.7 per cent, and the debate in Arendal of 59.9 per cent.

Compared to 2017, the party leader debate on NRK had an average of 751,000 viewers at the time. Despite the fact that more viewers joined the debate in 2017, the proportion was ten percentage points lower.

– The use of media and especially the way we watch TV is quite different now than in 2017. What used to be medium-sized numbers are now large numbers. In 2021, 591,000 is a large number, which is reflected in the market share of 57.7 percent, which is significantly higher than in 2017, when it was 47.6 percent, says head of NRK Analyze, Kristian Tolonen in a comment to Dagbladet .

He believes the changes in media habits since 2017 have an impact on the figures.

– Seen against the changes in media habits, the figures for the party leader debate are an expression that this program is actually more popular this year than it was in 2017, Tolonen says.

For TV 2’s part, this year’s two party leader debates from Media City in Bergen and Deichman Library in Oslo had average viewership of 284,000 and 339,000 viewers, respectively. This corresponds to a share of 38.2 per cent and 40.2 per cent, respectively.

In the party leader debate in 2017, TV 2 had an average viewership of 459,000 viewers, a share of 34.1 percent. In other words, the trend is the same for both NRK and TV 2. Both channels have declining viewership, but a higher proportion who follow the debates.

–