The Opposite of Breaking News: 6 Finnish Puppies Asleep on Camera, 24/7

For the sixth season, Finland’s national public broadcaster has pointed its cameras at a litter of puppies and simply left them on. Yle‘s Pentulive (“Puppy Live”) streams a Lagotto Romagnolo named Hilkka and her six newborn puppies 24 hours a day. The broadcast runs for about eight weeks, until the puppies are old enough to go to new homes in mid-December.¹

It offers a calm, cheerful look at the first weeks of a dog’s life, and a lot of people are watching. The AP reports the livestream drew more than 6 million views on social media in Finland in less than two weeks.⁴ Finland has just under 5.66 million people.³ That figure counts views rather than individual viewers, and it comes from Yle itself.

Six puppies, born on camera

The stream went live at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 6, on Yle Areena, the broadcaster’s streaming service, where viewers can chat as they watch.¹ Hilkka gave birth on the stream to two girls and four boys.¹⁵

Yle describes Hilkka as a school dog currently on maternity leave who also hunts truffles now and then and does agility. This is her second litter. The father, a Lagotto named Zorro, lives elsewhere in Finland.¹

By Thursday, October 15, the brown-and-white puppies weighed roughly 2.2 pounds each, according to the AP.⁴ “They are just opening their eyes and their ears,” Pirjo Koskinen, the Yle science journalist who came up with Pentulive, told the AP.⁴

Slow TV with big numbers

CNN notes the show has been labeled “slow TV,” a format first tried in Norway in 2009. CNN also points out that puppies sleep up to 20 hours a day.³ So a 24-hour puppy stream is, for most of those hours, a 24-hour nap stream.

Last year, according to figures Yle gave CNN, the Pentulive webpage had 6.5 million page views and Yle’s social media channels drew 20 million views.³ This season, Yle Areena’s stream page has shown about 10.4 million “starts,” a count of plays rather than unique viewers.² Based on viewing so far, CNN and the AP report that this year’s litter is expected to outperform last year’s.³⁴

Koskinen first launched the puppy-cam in 2021 as part of a series on canine science.³ This season also comes with a podcast, whose first episode was released October 2, live chats with the breeder, and a call for the public to suggest names for the puppies.⁵⁶

What happens next

In mid-December, the puppies will be adopted by people chosen in advance. The breeder’s identity is being kept private, according to the AP’s report as republished by the Odessa American.⁴