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For the most indolent of couch-dwellers, SBS has laid down a challenge come Sunday: 17 straight hours of its 'slow TV' hit The Ghan.
Beginning at 2.40am and culminating at 8.30pm, the broadcaster's multi-channel SBS Viceland will air the extended version of the three-hour episode which pulled in record audiences and unprecedented social media reaction for the network last weekend.
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The Ghan averaged 536,000 total viewers for the broadcaster on Sunday, its highest-rating program in 12 months, SBS said in a press statement.
Viewers online were split on the experiment, with some labelling the endless vistas of outback-and-rails "boring" and others suggesting the train should be nominated for its own Gold Logie.
SBS is airing an extended 17-hour episode of its hit The Ghan. Photo: SBS
The show has been billed by SBS as Australia's first foray into the 'slow TV movement', popularised by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation which telecast a seven-hour train journey in 2009 and a monumental 134-hour live ship voyage in 2011.
The movement has also spread to the UK, with BBC Four airing an entire series of slow TV specials in 2015, including a two-hour real-time bus ride through North Yorkshire.
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Despite its length, SBS's epic episode might still disappoint trainspotting completists.
The 17-hour episode, which follows the Ghan's entire 2979km train trip from Adelaide to Darwin, is itself a condensed cut of the full 54-hour trip, deleting the "black screen night time segments" of travel.
And, perhaps understandably for the broadcaster, the episode is not commercial-free.
The 17-hour episode of The Ghan: Australia's Greatest Train Journey airs on SBS Viceland and SBS On Demand on Sunday, from 2.40am to 8.30pm.
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