Two local newspapers, a private TV producer and a regional TV station are going on the air this week with a completely new collaboration leading up to a local election: A four-hour “Election Party” with political debates on three stages, political market for all parties, food and delicacies. All of which is broadcast and streamed live.

Thursday is the premiere on Ærø. In the next few weeks, Electoral Celebrations will be held in each of the 10 local municipalities. With finals in Svendborg and Odense this weekend up to the local elections on Tuesday 16 November. A total of more than 40 hours of live production from the local election campaign.

“I’m truly looking forward to this. It will be fun and exciting, as we have created the content of the Electoral Celebration together in an equal, creative collaboration, based on each of our strengths. That is why it will be great, says Rikke Bekker, editor-in-chief of Fyns Amts Avis.

The 10 events will be broadcast and streamed live on both TV 2 Fyn’s channel and tv2fyn.dk, fyens.dk and faa.dk from kl. 16.00-20.15 and then cut down to suit TV 2 Fyn news broadcast on TV 2 as well as news sites in the three media houses. The extensive live broadcast takes place in a huge co-production with the private producer, BBC Studios Nordic.

It is incredibly exciting to be involved in breaking new grounds for collaboration. The TV 2 regions forms an essential part of the democratic debate in Denmark. So when TV 2 Fyn invites Fyens Stiftstidende and Fyns Amts Avis to an integrated collaboration, where a private TV producer is also considered in the solution from the outset, we step out into a completely new media collaboration that has not been seen before. Here at BBC Studios Nordic, we are very proud to be part of the largest municipal election coverage seen in this part of the country, says René Szczyrbak, CEO of BBC Studios Nordic.

The editors of the two newspapers and TV 2 Fyn have together in September asked the people of Fyn for suggestions on debate topics. This yielded almost 300 suggestions. They were sent for a vote via the websites of the newspapers and the TV 2 region, in which almost 6000 Fyn residents participated.

Both Fyens Stiftstidende and TV 2 Fyn have in recent years worked a lot with constructive journalism and with the Hearken tool, which is tailored to enter into dialogue with citizens, users, readers and viewers. Therefore, journalism is also getting closer to the Fyn residents’ agenda than before, says Poul Kjærgaard, editor-in-chief of Fyens Stiftstidende.

The 10 Electoral Celebrations are the focal point for TV 2 Fyn’s election coverage, both digitally and on television.

Fyens Stiftstidende, Fyns Amts Avis and TV 2 Fyn have always worked closely together up to elections with joint debate meetings. At the local elections in 2017, we greatly expanded with the youth project “Stemrne”. This spring, we agreed to expand the collaboration even further – also with an external producer. Now we are ready with the Electoral Celebration, says Esben Seerup, director of TV 2