Greed, sex and dysfunctional in NRK’s Exit 3 lure 1.2 M average viewers

They did it again! After garnering more than 2 million average viewers for season 1 in 2019 and season 2 in 2021, the four financial high-flyers Adam (Simon J. Berger), Henrik (Tobias Santelmann), William (Pål Sverre Hagen) and Jeppe (Jon Øigarden) and their decadent lifestyle in Exit, continue to draw massive crowds in Norway.

This time around, NRK has opted for a different release strategy. Instead of posting all episodes for binge-watching on their streaming service NRK TV, Norway’s public broadcaster released digitally a pack of three episodes March 2, another 3 March 9, and the last two March 16. So far four episodes are also available on linear TV-NRK 1.

Episode 1 was followed by 1,432,000 combined viewers (262,000 linear/1,171,000 online), and episodes 2 and 3, respectively 1,268,000 and 1,297,000 viewers. At press time, the first six out of eight episodes had attracted over one million average online viewers.
“It’s great news!” said NRK head of drama Marianne Furevold-Boland, who served as executive producer, together with Fremantle Norway’s Petter Testmann-Koch.

The Norwegian drama set in the financial world has been a phenomenal hit not only in Norway but across the Nordics. Produced by Fremantle for NRK, with the backing from the Nordic 12 (an alliance of the five public broadcasters), season 1 was followed by 3.5 million people in the five Nordic countries, and as much as 3.8 million for season 2.

The show hit those magic numbers by scoring not only across territories, but also across gender, social class and age, as underlined by Nordvision who described it as “a rare segment-smasher” (CLICK HERE).

This was also clear in interviews conducted by the Fund with several young Nordic filmmakers, who cited Exit as their favourite Nordic show CLICK HERE.

The series sold globally by Fremantle was also licensed to around 50 territories and a Finnish remake produced by Fremantle Finland garnered strong ratings on C More last fall - see our separate story - CLICK HERE.

Created again by concept director Karlsen who said that 70% of the series was inspired by true stories, Exit season 3 follows the four main characters Adam, Jeppe, Henrik and William as they exploit tax havens, cryptocurrency, and green investments to become even richer.

“The final season of Exit is a culmination of life the characters have lived so far. They have always lived in a way where they have pushed everything to the limit, to get some kind of kick. However this time, they finally push it outside the edge,” said Karlsen, describing the closing season as “a kind of decadent and destructive party”.

Testman-Koch said the final season deals again “with system failure and unexplained irregularities in society, and individuals’ ability to exploit these secret goldmines.”

For Exit 3, Karlsen shared some of his directing duties with Iceland’s Gísli Örn Garðarsson, co-creator and co-director of the Icelandic hit Blackport. Garðarsson starred in Karlsen’s earlier romantic drama One Night.

Myanna Buring who also played in One Night, is the new face in Exit season 3, alongside Danish star Jesper Christensen.

Returning actors include Agnes Kittelsen, Ine Marie Wilmann, Sonja Wanda, Anders Baasmo, Rolf Lassgård, Maria Bonnevie and Bjørn Skagestad.

Season 3 is available on Yle Areena since early March, and is due to premiere on SVT in April.