Pope benedict XVI's visit to the USA

ON LOCATION

EVENT> Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the USA
LOCATION> Washington DC and New York
DATE > April 15-20, 2008

The Pope arrives at a packed National's
Park in Washington.

POPE BENEDICT XVI'S VISIT TO THE USA
On his first visit to the USA, Pope Benedict undertook a demanding series of events stretching across five days, including Masses at baseball parks in Washington and New York, a visit to the White House, a speech at the United Nations, and prayers at Ground Zero. Eurovision Americas provided standup positions at all the key venues, as well as workspace for visiting correpsondents in broadcast centres co-sited with the Papal visit organizers in both cities.

Eurovision also provided the pool picture feed from all the venues to the workspace, based in hotels in Washington and New York. There were some initial concerns about the pool feed because the US networks covered the Pope's arrival with unmixed single cameras. However all the major events of the visit were covered by multiple-camera outside broadcast units, and a series of full-scale news events (NEs) was provided to members in Europe and in the US workspace.

With America operating on the NTSC standard but some members travelling from Europe with PAL equipment, Eurovision set up standards converters at the broadcast centres and switched out whichever standard individual members requested. In addition, Vatican TV provided valuable additional hand-held camera coverage of the Pope; this was in PAL, so had to be converted to NTSC for distribution to those working in the American standard.

As well as traditional tape formats, Eurovision Americas offered playouts in XDCam and P2, and stand-up positions were available in 16:9 or 4:3.

The scale of the operation clearly caused a headache for the organizers and initially they told European journalists that no venue credentials were available for them. Eurovision Americas staff, with input from the Rome bureau, worked relentlessly in support of EBU members, raising awareness of the importance of the European networks and finally gaining everyone the credentials they required.

Comments
Bill Dunlop > President of Eurovision Americas, Inc.
'With the recent history of the Catholic Church so controversial in the States, we knew that interest in Pope Benedict's visit would be intense. The team, already working flat out covering an extended Presidential election campaign, faced enormous logistical challenges. It took months of planning, negotiating and cajoling to make sure that everyone could broadcast live from the key venues as well as having access to a pool feed of the main events.'

Emilie de Schaetzen > Producer, Washington operations
'Eurovision's crucial role in distributing video of the biggest moments was illustrated when a Vatican spokesperson read a statement on the child abuse scandal in front of a pool camera. The tape was dispatched to us at the Washington broadcast centre, and the US networks were desperate for the material for their evening bulletins. After a string of phone calls to Eurovision Washington and New York as well as CBS and ABC to make sure everyone was recording, the tape was played at 6.22pm. Eight minutes later it was the lead story in all the major US network newscasts, as well as being distributed to the workspaces and flashed on the Eurovision network.'

VITALSTATISTICS

> 26 standup positions

> 9 different venues, including the White House and Nationals Park in Washington, and the UN, Ground Zero and Yankee Stadium in New York

> 5 satellite trucks and 16 fibres in use

> 35 workspaces in two different broadcast centres

>
10 ISDNs for radio broadcasters

THE EUROVISION TEAM

Emilie de Schaetzen > Washington Operations

Belén López Garrido > New York workspace and pool feed

Ian Johnson > New York stand-up positions

Jason Scharf > Broadcast centre engineer

Mark Adelsheim > Broadcast centre engineer

OTHER OPERATIONS COMPLETED IN APRIL
NATO Summit in Bucharest, Romania
Bush in Zagreb, Croatia
US/North Korea talks in Singapore
Vladimir Putin in Libya
Olympic Flame in San Francisco, New Delhi,
Bangkok and Canberra.