Looking for gamers where they are: Norwegian broadcasting from television to Twitch

In 2022–2023, the gaming house LL35, live-streamed on Twitch.tv, was the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s (NRK) content strategy to reach one of the most elusive audiences: male gamers between 18–29. This article discusses the case of LL35 in the light of Norwegian media policy, with particular focus on the Norwegian public service mandate. Through an analysis of how the content and scheduling of the live Twitch broadcasts developed over the span of its first year of existence, informed by interviews with the production crew behind LL35, we discuss whether LL35 was able to live up to the public service mandate and how LL35 can be part of preparing NRK for the competition in a world of (inter)networked broadcasting. The article centers on two research questions: How did the content and scheduling of LL35 develop over time, and to what degree could this development enable NRK to fulfill its commitment to offer public service content to its target group? The research shows that despite the will for innovation in NRK, combining the social media logic of Twitch and the media logic of NRK was a challenge. It also underlined the mutual dependency of legacy television and streaming, and how their roles shift. The theoretical foundation for the study is a combination of perspectives from media policy studies with insights from research on esports, game streaming and Twitch, and studies of public service youth content.