Looking north from a satellite in orbit above the equator, Norway appears to merge with the Arctic Ocean at the North Pole. Our country does not reach quite that far (no, we do not have polar bears wandering about in the streets), but it measures more than 1700 kilometres as the crow flies, from the 58th to the 71st latitude.
Following the ins and outs of the fjords, the coastline is ten times longer.
1700 kilometers; that's as far as from Budapest to Brest or from London to Gibrater. If Norway were rotated about its southernmost point, the North Cape would reach nearly to Rome. Norway shares the Scandinavian Peninsula with Sweden, extending further north and east to border on Finland and Russia.
Norway's surface area is about the same as Italy's but, most of it is covered by mountains, highlands, glaciers and lakes. Only one quarter of the land area is inhabited, by a little more than 4.3 million people, giving an average population density of around 12 per square kilometer.
There is plenty of elbow room in Norway, a land of winter expanses and twilit summer nights. Norway is the land of the midnight sun, yet an active and modern nation.
Norway is a good country to live in and a pleasant country to visit.
Broadcasting in Norway
NRK - NORSK RIKSKRINGKASTING. The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), an independent institution, is responsible for general public broadcasting in Norway. NRK binds the nation together in a community of information, experience and entertainment.
Norwegian broadcasting is among the veterans in Europe. The BBC was founded in 1922; the first Norwegian broadcast was transmitted in Oslo in 1923. The following year saw the founding of the Kringkastingsselskapet A/S, the forerunner and "godfather" of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation formally created in 1934 with offices in eight cities besides Oslo.
Subsequent developments have been much slower in Norway, however, than in the rest of Europe. Construction of a radio and television network in a small, sparsely populated and far-flung country proved to be expensive.
Permanent television broadcasts weren't established until as late as 1960. Until 1984, radio services included only a single channel, and it wasn't until 1993 that NRK expanded its radio activities to three parallel broadcasts.
The deregulating of the European broadcasting monopolies also applies to Norway. Hundreds of local radio stations sprouted up in the 1980s, and a nationwide private radio corporation (P4) has been granted a broadcasting concession, possibly going on the air in 1993.
Private, commercial television stations made their entry via cable and satellite in the late 1980s, and a private, commercially financed TV2 has obtained an operating concession starting in 1992.
NRK will be facing stiff competition for viewers and listeners throughout the 90s, but it is also well prepared, with four major centres in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø, as well as regional offices throughout the country.
Reception for everyone
Norway's geographcal expanse and topography require a complicated network of transmitters in order to provide good reception of sound and images to l. 7 million households. The goal of 100% nationwide coverage is nearly reached, but it has cost enormous sums.
Over one hundred main FM transmitters have been built in 45 mountaintop installations. To these are linked 1600 smaller frequency converters for radio transmission as well as six long and medium wave transmitters.
The television network consists of 44 main transmitters and nearly 2500 frequency converters. The TELE-X satelite is additionally used to distribute broadcasts to Spitsbergen, far up in the Arctic Ocean, and to the many offshore platforms in the North Sea.
Three powerful shortwave transmitters bring NRK broadcasts to Norwegian listeners around the world. They also send Danish shortwAve groadcasts, and bith Ireland and Japan have expressed interest in using Norwegian broadcasting facilities.
Norwegian Telecom is in charge of building and operating the broadcasting networks in close collaboration with NRK, which covers investment and operation costs from its own budget.
Many of the major transmitters are built on mountaintops where the rigours of the Norwegian climate present a tough challenge. Summer heat, winter temperatures approach ing -40deg.C (-40deg.F) in places, constant low-pressure weather systems moving in from the Atlantic with their loads of rain and snow, storms encasing masts and transmitter antennae in ice.
Foreigners often wonder at Norwegians, who hold a world record of sorts in lengthy weather reports. But there is room for a lot of weather in such an extended country, and that weather is important to Norwegians, so they want detailed reports, on radio and TV several times a day.
Knowledge of wind and weather, of what's going on in the wide world - indeed, information of every kind - has an integral place in Norwgian exoectations of its public broadcasting institution, so this type of material forms the backbone of NRK's programming.
News sources include the international news services, the extensive journalistic activities of 20 major and minor news editorial staffs in Oslo as well as the NRK offices scattered around the country. NRK's news network also stretches around the world; its own correspondents in a dozen cities from Hong Kong and Harare to Washington and Buenos Aires report daily to the radio and television news desks. Collaboration on news
coverage within the European Broadcasting Union is particularly important for the television newscasts.
Bringing detailed and objective news, information and documentary material is a manifest responsibility for a national broadcasting institution. Yet the responsibility goes even farther: NRKs total programming offer must meet all the various needs of the public for activity and relaxation, for music, art and knowledge. Programmes should be accessible to all, young and old, at a uniform price regardless of where they live.
These principles for public broadcasting services have been and will continue
to be NRKs guiding principles.
(From the introduction to Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation,
NRK, published by NRK, 1992.)
NRK Norsk Rikskringkasting
N-0340 Oslo