The third season of Norway’s smash online hit series Skam (Shame) attracted 573,000 unique visitors when it was released last Sunday night. That’s likely to mean a new record when it also will be shown on TV Friday, just as the series is rolling out internationally as well.
“We’re extremely satisfied,” Håkon Moslet, program chief at state broadcaster NRK’s channel P3, told newspaper Dagsavisen on Tuesday. “These are the highest numbers we’ve seen in Skam’s short but successful history.
The series follows a group of teenagers and focuses on one of them in particular each season. The first season followed the drama of a girl named Eva and then Noora, who struck a sensitive chord when her character suffered a sexual assault that set off a national debate on its frequency and under-reporting.
Now the main character is a boy named Isak, who already has provocatively been portrayed as openly smoking cannabis and shining a light on drug use among teens. The series has become wildly popular for its realistic portrayal of today’s youth and the pressure they’re under in a world their parents don’t or can’t fully understand.
The series has also become a hit in Denmark, grabbed attention in other countries and been another major success for NRK, not least because of its unusual format that makes it available online for viewing when convenient.
“We’re not just concerned with setting new records but making a series that’s important for young people,” Moslet told Dagsavisen. “For us, it’s just as important that this series engages people, and we see that in the comments fields.”
newsinenglish.no staff
