Huge Numbers of the Irish Public Engage with RT 1916 30 March 2016: A Weekend to Remember as Huge Numbers of the Irish Public Engage with RT 1916
Over 3 million tune in to RT television
Hundreds of thousands attend RT Reflecting the Rising
The RT 1916 series of events and programming engaged huge numbers of the Irish public this Easter weekend. Over 3 million viewers (3,085,000) tuned in to RT television from Friday evening's Late Late Show to Monday night's Centenary, reaching 75% of the viewing population. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the capital city on Easter Monday to experience RT Reflecting the Rising in partnership with Ireland 2016, as the city was transformed by the biggest public history and cultural event ever staged in Ireland. RT also provided live feeds of the Official State Commemoration to broadcasters at home and abroad ensuring that the ceremonies were made available to as wide an audience as possible.
The RT 1916 programme of events culminated in the broadcast of Centenary, live from the Bord Gais Theatre on Easter Monday night. Some of Ireland's best known singers, musicians and performers including Imelda May, Jack Lukeman, Gavin James and Colm Wilkinson came together for the special one-off cultural celebration to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising. Centenary had a cast of over 600 performers including 21 choirs, 18 dancers, 6 aerial dancers and the RT Concert Orchestra featuring original music composed by Joe Csibi. The programme attracted an audience of 491,000 viewers on RT One representing 35% of the available audience. To date, there have been 29,700 streams (live and on demand) of Centenary on RT Player- 61% of streams from domestic audiences and 39% from international audiences. Centenary will be repeated tonight on RT One at 10:15pm.
Glen Killane, Project Lead, RT 1916 and Managing Director of RT Television said, The weekend's output was produced by staff across RT in collaboration with the independent production sector, Ireland 2016 and arts and cultural organisations throughout the country. We are very grateful to all those who helped us make the weekend such a success. I would like to thank the public for engaging with us in such huge numbers over this Easter weekend, where we felt united in a huge sense of pride in our country, our rich culture and unique heritage. RT is also proud that our coverage of the official state ceremonies was carried by broadcasters at home and abroad, ensuring that they could be enjoyed by the widest possible audience and showcasing our country from the US to China .
The Good Friday edition of The Late Late Show, featuring the stars of RT 's Reflecting the Rising and new The Taste of Success mentor Roz Purcell attracted an average of 586,500 viewers and 43% share of the audience. Friday's episode has had over 15,200 streams on RT Player to date.
RT One's live coverage of the official State Commemoration ceremonies and parade at the GPO on Easter Sunday was watched by an average of 336,900 viewers, equating to 50% of those watching television in Ireland during that time. Over 1.1 million people tuned in to the live transmission at some point during the five hour broadcast which was presented by Bryan Dobson, Eileen Dunne and Aine Lawlor, Cathal Mac Coille, John Bowman and Mary Kennedy. In addition 186,000 viewers on average watched the compilation programme of Sunday's State Commemorations at 10.35pm on RT One. Official coverage of the State commemorations by RT generated nearly 100,000* streams on the RT Player across the weekend with 48% of live streams on Sunday morning from International users. RT 1916 TV programming has to date attracted close to 800,000 streams on RT Player across domestic and international audiences.
As Ireland's public service media organisation, RT was host broadcaster providing complimentary live feeds to both international and Irish media outlets including CNN, BBC, SKY News, CCTV China, TV3 and UTV Ireland. RT 's online feed was provided free to the Irish Independent, The Irish Times, The Irish Examiner, The Irish Post, Journal.ie and Newstalk to carry live on their own websites.
Following this historic weekend RT Nationwide will be taking a behind the scenes look at the events enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people across the weekend, this Wednesday at 7.00pm on RT One.
Meanwhile an average of 246,800 viewers tuned in to watch more than 1,000 singers accompanied by the RT National Symphony Orchestra and conductor David Brophy in a live open air concert from Collins Barracks for A Nation's Voice. To date there have been over 8,100 streams on RT Player 41% International (UK, US, Canada top 3 countries) and 59% Domestic.
On Sunday night, Ryan Tubridy hosted the docu-drama '16 Letters, filmed in the GPO, with an average of of 331,100 viewers and a 25 per cent share of the available audience. The programme has had 2,340 domestic streams on RT Player to date.
An average of 360,700 viewers watched Joe Duffy's Children of the Revolution. The documentary based on Joe's best-selling book told the story of the 1916 Easter Rising as seen from the perspective of the 40 children who lost their lives during the conflict. The programme has had 6,500 streams on RT Player to date 45% International (UK, US, Canada top 3 countries) and 55% Domestic.
On Easter Monday, Dublin city centre, north and south was transformed by the biggest public history and cultural event ever staged in Ireland, as RT Reflecting the Rising in partnership with Ireland 2016 invited people to re-imagine Dublin and Ireland of 100 years ago. RT Reflecting the Rising in partnership with Ireland 2016 was a free family event that took place in Dublin city from 11am 6pm. Visitors experienced an enormous varie
