Solved or Squeezed
If people watch TV news for the drama and conflict, why would they still tune in for good news?
That was the puzzle TV2 Fyn was trying to figure out ahead of municipal elections in Denmark’s Funen region. The station was serving as the test center for the methods of the Constructive Institute, based 90 miles to the north at Aarhus University. Among its challenges: How to produce positive stories that weren’t boring.
“Our focus before the local elections was to make it entertaining,” Editorial Director Lasse Hørbye said at the institute’s 2022 Listen Louder conference. “We needed to make something that people would choose to watch when they have the whole menu of the internet.”
TV2 Fyn | The Constructive Institute
Borrowing ideas from elsewhere
The newsroom staff spent time watching game shows and reality TV to come up with an idea that could be both constructive and entertaining.
“I asked everyone in the group to bring three of the most guilty pleasures they had on their Netflix list — the things they were actually ashamed of watching because they weren’t serious enough,” Hørbye said.
The resulting concept: Take four local politicians, put them in a shrinking room, and give them 20 minutes to solve a problem together. Have a news anchor and a negotiation expert giving commentary in cutaway shots. And see what happens.
Shifting the relationship
During an election year, the newsroom had no problem getting politicians to go along with the project. The challenge was convincing them about the newsroom’s constructive goals.
“The politicians thought that we wanted them to disagree and fight with each other,” Hørbye said. “We really had to make them believe we wanted the opposite.”
The politicians were charged with finding common ground around a specific eldercare issue. In a small town in the northwest corner of the island region, there were not enough caregivers to adequately meet the needs of the elderly population. The show’s format had them talk through ideas as the walls closed in around them.
“You physically put pressure on them, so that they end up right next to each other and actually touching each other,” Hørbye said. “The idea is that you have 20 minutes to solve things you haven’t been able to agree on in four years.”
As a result of the program, the group was able to identify a new angle on the problem: hiring young teens to sit with and listen to the elderly residents, so that professional caregivers could focus on higher-level needs. The station covered the resulting new program when it launched.
Hørbye said the politicians thought the project was fun, and that it improved the station’s relationship with local policy-makers.
“The people we talked to said, ‘Suddenly we get praise for the reason we actually went into politics,’” Hørbye said.
