RTE spent 167k on the pope coverage

jimmynokia

http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/rte-cost-election-resignation-pope-rome-vatican-884473-Apr2013/


And are happy about it!

IMO this is madness and they overdid it.

well it is along way up there

wolfpawnat

jimmynokia wrote: »

http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/rte-cost-election-resignation-pope-rome-vatican-884473-Apr2013/


And are happy about it!

IMO this is madness and they overdid it.

Truthfully, it's less than I thought it would be, not that I condone the cost.

Mr Benevolent

I honestly don't care.

Arcsin

They did it for 100k less than the previous conclave. What exactly did you find excessive, seeing as they did give some breakdown of the costs?

Or is it the fact that it was a Catholic Church event that is really your problem?

Montroseee

Mr Benevolent wrote: »

I honestly don't care.

Why bother posting then?

COYVB

How much did they make from advertising revenue during the coverage though?

Arcsin

COYVB wrote: »

How much did they make from advertising revenue during the coverage though?

Fcuk loads I'd imagine. Catholic stuff goes down well with RTE viewers.

tfitzgerald

Arcsin wrote: »

They did it for 100k less than the previous conclave. What exactly did you find excessive, seeing as they did give some breakdown of the costs?

Or is it the fact that it was a Catholic Church event that is really your problem?

I think Arcsin you hit the nail on the head

jimmynokia

COYVB wrote: »

How much did they make from advertising revenue during the coverage though?

Nothing,what where they advertising? BIBLES?

ScumLord

jimmynokia wrote: »

http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/rte-cost-election-resignation-pope-rome-vatican-884473-Apr2013/


And are happy about it!

IMO this is madness and they overdid it.

What makes you think they overdid it?

Considering transport costs, the cost of equipment, staff and everything €167K doesn't seem outlandish. I would have thought one of their cameras could be in the region of 10s of thousands of euros.

Arcsin

jimmynokia wrote: »

Nothing,what where they advertising? BIBLES?

Well it wasn't condoms anyway.

jimmynokia

ScumLord wrote: »

What makes you think they overdid it?

Considering transport costs, the cost of equipment, staff and everything €167K doesn't seem outlandish. I would have thought one of their cameras could be in the region of 10s of thousands of euros.

They sent 13 reporters afaik which is excessive ,watching one rte reporter talking to another was also pathetic.

The coverage was overkilled.Both on radio and tv.

Pace2008

It was a coverage of an event that occurs once in a blue moon, that a reasonable chunk of the population was interested in, and I'd imagine it generated a fair amount of advertising revenue. I'd also say it falls under the label of public-interest programming, unlike, say, the Angelus, which is a endorsement (albeit a minor one) of a particular religion.

Also, possibly inb4 people start bawling their eyes out about Catholic bashing.

Zebra3

Arcsin wrote: »

Well it wasn't condoms anyway.

They mightn't target them at Catholics, but they target them at "Catholics".

true

As someone else said too many journalists were sent for a story that was thin on new content even on Sky or BBC news. The constant barrage of radio commentary saying nothing but the same old thing was just pure airtime filler. Something RTE excels at unfortunately. Like others I’d like to see them spending the same money investigating real journalistic stories of importance at home.

ScumLord

jimmynokia wrote: »

They sent 13 reporters afaik which is excessive ,watching one rte reporter talking to another was also pathetic.

The coverage was overkilled.Both on radio and tv.

Possibly, I didn't watch any of it. But when they say they sent 13 reporters I'm guessing some of those reporters could be behind the scenes doing the work of finding information as the reporter that's in front of the camera can't do that work. So I'd guess they're on sliding pay scales and it's not a case of sending 13 "star" journalists.

To put 1 person in front of a camera requires a team of people in the background.

Arcsin

jimmynokia wrote: »

They sent 13 reporters afaik which is excessive ,watching one rte reporter talking to another was also pathetic.

The coverage was overkilled.Both on radio and tv.

RTE is a business. For one of their key demographics this was a massive event. They got huge viewership figures from that and sold lots of expensive advertising space. They know what their customers want and delivered it.

I am pretty sure you are not in the group they were targeting.

Nabber

Another attack the church/god/priest/pope thread. Tis getting boring now.

I think the people who hate the church and homosexuals are the best sort of posters.

vicwatson

Another BIG waste of taxpayers money

Fr_Dougal

A non-story. Typical Journal.ie, always trolling.

Brendan Flowers

vicwatson wrote: »

Another BIG waste of taxpayers money

Do you know that RTE do have other sources of income apart from the TV licence?

This thread seems to be just another example of some people looking for any excuse to complain.

jimmynokia

ScumLord wrote: »

Possibly, I didn't watch any of it. But when they say they sent 13 reporters I'm guessing some of those reporters could be behind the scenes doing the work of finding information as the reporter that's in front of the camera can't do that work. So I'd guess they're on sliding pay scales and it's not a case of sending 13 "star" journalists.

To put 1 person in front of a camera requires a team of people in the background.

It takes one man to hold a flippin camera come on.

jimmynokia

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

Do you know that RTE do have other sources of income apart from the TV licence?

This thread seems to be just another example of some people looking for any excuse to complain.

Hello noel curran!:D

donvito99

The problem I had with RTE's coverage was the fact that you had Newscasters and Primetime there on some nights. Religious correspondent, Europe Correspondent, Europe Editor. They mixed it up, Eileen Dunne and Brian Dobson.

It could have been handled better.

ScumLord

jimmynokia wrote: »

It takes one man to hold a flippin camera come on.

.... sound guy, director, assistants, would be the other obvious people involved but I'm sure there are other technical experts needed to operate and maintain the equipment. You can't compare filming at home to broadcast filming. It's clear no one has a clue what the costs should be, they just see a big number and start complaining out of ignorance.

Arcsin

jimmynokia wrote: »

It takes one man to hold a flippin camera come on.

Better let RTE know there's no need for that expensive production team/directors/techs/sound guys. You are going to save them millions.

AnonoBoy

167k?

That's not enough.

MORE ASBESTOS! MORE ASBESTOS!

Arcsin

ScumLord wrote: »

.... sound guy, director, assistants, would be the other obvious people involved but I'm sure there are other technical experts needed to operate and maintain the equipment. You can't compare filming at home to broadcast filming. It's clear no one has a clue what the costs should be, they just see a big number and start complaining out of ignorance.

RTE gives its viewers what they want, thejournal.ie gives its readers what they want. The only difference is populist bull**** articles are much cheaper to produce than bull**** tv.

mikom

RTE and the catholic church.
My two favorite dinosaurs.

Well met, the pair of them.

Paramite Pie

vicwatson wrote: »

Another BIG waste of taxpayers money

Not every person has the same interest in news coverage. I didn't watch any of it but people were interest for some reason. I'm sure it made a profit on adverstising.

jimmynokia wrote: »

It takes one man to hold a flippin camera come on.

But there's often more than one camera. To broadcast live to another country you need generally need a satellite truck. You also need an audio engineer who can control which channels are added to the output if there are more than one video feed (mixing pre-recored footage/replays with the live footage/commentary) as well as lighting and rigging technicians.

Various other staff may be need for a live broadcast (not so much when it's local).

Knasher

If they thought it would get the ratings, they would still be there filming that chimney. That's just the way reporting works.

kneemos

The only problem I'd have with it is that it was a non event,the Pope's retired end of story.If they managed to make some revenue out of it fair play,twelve reporters seems a tad excessive though.

cnoc

jimmynokia wrote: »

http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/rte-cost-election-resignation-pope-rome-vatican-884473-Apr2013/


And are happy about it!

IMO this is madness and they overdid it.

---

For comparison sake, what was the cost of Obama's and the Queen's visit?

Peregrine

This is exactly why I don't brand myself as "an atheist" anymore. Because people will think I'm another one of you moanbags who live their whole lives to bash the Catholic church even if it means looking like an absolute idiot like you just did now.

Look, you didn't want to see coverage of the conclave, fair enough turn off the ****in telly and think about how smarter than everyone else you are. But clearly, some people wanted to know about it, myself included regardless of my lack of faith in Catholicism. The way every TV channel works is they show things that gets the most viewers and they make money from advertising during these shows. I would say RTE made a huge profit from advertising during the coverage. 167k is actually rather cheap considering they had a whole team in a foreign city for a week, like every channel does during major events.

To put your argument into contrast, say I dislike all sports, I think it's an absolute waste of precious time. Would you support me if I tried to argue that the hundreds of thousands RTE spend on Olympics coverage is outrageous and a complete waste of taxpayer money because I clearly didn't care about it? Even though they made a huge of profit from advertising to people who watched it.

jill_valentine

Did anybody watch any of it...?

I know it's par for the course for RTE and all, but... lookit, if purely for-profit networks like Sky could cover it with a fraction of the personnel then I'd have to wonder why little cottage industry RTE had to go bananas on it.

mikom

cnoc wrote: »

---

For comparison sake, what was the cost of Obama's and the Queen's visit?

Was the pope inaugurated in Ireland?

scottdawson

I don't know what the fuss is. The election of a new pope is a significant event worldwide; it doesn't happen very often. So what's the big deal?

LizT

Don't really get the fuss? It's an event that probably won't happen again for at least the next 10 years, more than likely longer. A lot of people had an interest in it, regardless of their religion.

kneemos

scottdawson wrote: »

I don't know what the fuss is. The election of a new pope is a significant event worldwide; it doesn't happen very often. So what's the big deal?

I think it's the overkill that the op's complaining about.All there was to report was that the Pope had retired how many reporters does it take in fairness and why did they all need to be in Rome.

godwin

Would have been cheaper if they paid for live streaming of coverage, just like other major Broadcasters worldwide done.

scottdawson

Ok. But let's think about it another way. How many active Catholics are in Ireland? I don't know. Let's say modestly 300,000. That's a conservative estimate. The cost is about half a euro per active catholic, which is a tiny fraction of the license fee. Is this overkill?

DaithiMa

Looking at some of the "stars" wages in RTE I think it is safe to say that 167k is only a drop in the ocean. Sure Tubs/Kenny etc earn that much in maybe three months. Now THAT is what you call a waste of money.

ToddyDoody

jill_valentine wrote: »

Did anybody watch any of it...?

I know it's par for the course for RTE and all, but... lookit, if purely for-profit networks like Sky could cover it with a fraction of the personnel then I'd have to wonder why little cottage industry RTE had to go bananas on it.

If it was on sky he'd have had to be surrounded by scantily clad women in an event that eventually led up to a drunken brawl / orgy

StewartGriffin

jimmynokia wrote: »

They sent 13 reporters afaik which is excessive ,watching one rte reporter talking to another was also pathetic.

The coverage was overkilled.Both on radio and tv.

Agreed. If, in their spare time, between extremely short news bulletins, they had produced a quality two hour documentary about said events, then sold that to other networks - it might be worth the cost.

Defiler Of The Coffin

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/rte-spent-194000-covering-change-of-pope-in-vatican-29241425.html

RTE clocked up a €194,000 bill for covering the resignation of Pope Benedict and the election of his successor Pope Francis.

This included €11,400 on 32 flights for 22 journalists and producers from its news and current affairs, television and radio divisions, a group that included news anchor Bryan Dobson, Miriam O'Callaghan, Joe Little and Sean O'Rourke.

No individual breakdown was given for accommodation, expenses and taxis. A combined figure for these expenses came €56,300.

Waste of license fee money on a Rome junket or justifiable given the amount of public interest in the election of the new Pope?

I'm thinking they would have got in and around the same viewership figures for even half the spend. Personally I'd rather see it spent on better home-grown programming as opposed to the election of a foreign head of state whose organisation is becoming less relevant to the people of Ireland.

Kinder Bueno

Waste of money. I can't even remember the Pope's name.

Fighting Irish

and....

super_furry

In fairness it's one of the biggest international stories of the year.

Grayson

Defiler Of The Coffin wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/rte-spent-194000-covering-change-of-pope-in-vatican-29241425.html



Waste of license fee money on a Rome junket or justifiable given the amount of public interest in the election of the new Pope?

I'm thinking they would have got in and around the same viewership figures for even half the spend. Personally I'd rather see it spent on better home-grown programming as opposed to the election of a foreign head of state whose organisation is becoming less relevant to the people of Ireland.

Still better spending it on a news event that was happening rather than giving pat kenny a pay rise

Mint Sauce

Kinder Bueno wrote: »

Waste of money. I can't even remember the Pope's name.

Dave.