Good practice:

Strömsö, Creating Trends

Strömsö is a lifestyle television programme that focuses on topics such as creativity, handicraft, gardening, cooking and the art of living a creative and fulfilling life. The show aims to inspire people and provides ideas and tips, shares and teaches skills and know-how to help with daily life, and entertains and offers a break from daily stress. Handicraft is one of the themes on the programme.

Strömsö operates in the innovation dimension of people’s daily lives by providing small-scale, everyday innovations. Strömsö presents new ideas and ways to use handicraft and handicraft techniques, reinventing them and adapting trends into them such as (megatrend) sustainability. As an example, sustainability in handicraft may include repairing clothes by hand in a sympathetic and inspiring way. In this activity Strömsö makes using recycled materials ‘cool’.

Due to the popularity of the programme, these ideas and projects may also become trends amongst the audience and the general public. One example of such is the Strömsö pullover which was presented on the programme with instructions on how to knit it. This pullover has become a big trend. Strömsö has become so popular in Finland that when something does not go perfectly, people say “It did not go like in Strömsö”.

In order to continuously renew, the production perpetually searches for and recruits new craftspeople, artisans, cooks, etc. This is most often done through a casting process utilising a set of high qualities.

The premises, materials and human resources including all technical and administrative personnel, approximately 20-25 people.

• 300 000 – 500 000 viewers/episode
• Also shown in Sweden and Norway as part of the Nordic Public Service partnership Nordvision. Some participants, guests and chefs come from Sweden.
• Hundreds to thousands of artisans, craftspeople, cooks etc. featured
• Proverb: “it didn’t go like in Strömsö” is used when things don’t go well.
• There is a Facebook group called “it didn’t go like in Strömsö” where people post pictures of failed experiments.
• Viral success of the Strömsö pullover.

-Financial constraints
- Lack of inspiration and ingenuity
- Continuously renewing the programme over the years without negatively impacting what viewers already find interesting
- Difficulty finding new talent
- The evolution of the media industry and providing content on different platforms.

Strömsö programme would be easily replicable in any country or region on television or social media. The practice introduces adaptations of culture, lifestyle, trends, handicraft, etc. in a warm and idyllic way which might be presented differently in every country to make it approachable for people in everyday life. Similarly, the common baseline skill level of the community should be investigated. The spirit of the programme is important: warm, idyllic and approachable.

Yet, in case of replicating any part of it, permissions (franchising, contractualising, etc.) would need to be discussed and organised with YLE.