A Norwegian TV channel has taken the extraordinary step of blocking a saucy scene from one of its shows, after the clip unexpectedly racked up hundreds of millions of views in India, Indonesia, and Pakistan.
The scene in question came from a mini-series called Dumpa (meaning Dumped) on the P3 channel, which is run by the national broadcaster NRK. It depicted the ill-fated reunion of a young soldier on leave and his love-hungry girlfriend.
#Norwegian TV channel blocks steamy scene after racking up MILLIONS of views in #India & #Pakistanhttps://t.co/Cc6IprFWlQ pic.twitter.com/HSceKULOO2
— RT (@RT_com) October 5, 2019
Things start off well as the lingerie-clad woman seeks to make up for the lost time, but her burning desire quickly turns to rage as her boyfriend informs her that he is being treated for a sexually transmitted disease. The scene ends with the hapless soldier being booted out the door.
The apparent language barrier didn’t stop viewers flooding in from all over South Asia as people were seemingly captivated by the gripping acting and storytelling in the Norwegian show. At least that’s what they’d tell you anyway.
NRK’s Eirik Solheim was quick to explain that the racy scene entirely complied with YouTube’s strict nudity rules, in an article about the extraordinary viewing figures.
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The avalanche of clicks came from a range of countries – including India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey. Nearly 40 percent of the views came from India alone.
Solheim notes that several of the aforementioned countries have strict national filters against pornographic websites, likely explaining the popularity of the scene.
P3’s YouTube channel also landed hundreds of thousands of fresh followers in the aftermath of its viral moment. The channel now has nearly one million subscribers and about 800,000 of them are estimated to be from outside of its target audience.
https://www.facebook.com/NRKP3/videos/10152961714145996/
While you’d think all these extra eyeballs viewing their content would be a good thing, P3 says that it has made it difficult to get accurate statistics on the people it actually wants to reach.
The station has since blocked the raunchy video, alongside several others whose views had risen up unexpectedly. It is now considering installing geo-blocking technology on some of its content.
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“We probably have other opportunities rather than blocking the videos, but we found that this was the best we could do in the short term. They are on hold and maybe reopened later,” the channel’s social media officer Daniel Ramberg told Dagbladet.
International viewers will surely be very excited to learn that the channel has yet to remove the clip from its Facebook page, so the saucy scene is still available outside of Norway for now.