March 08, 2021
20:53
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According to media sources, the VRT paid around 60,000 euros for the rights to the interview with British royals Harry and Meghan. ‘We look at it with wide eyes’, it sounds to the competition.
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A high-profile interview with two members of the British royal family is not every day on the desk of television buyers. It is logical that there was a lot of bids all over the world for the broadcasting rights. The American television channel CBS has already sold the rights in at least 70 countries.
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According to the business newspaper Wall Street Journal, CBS itself paid 5.8 to 7.5 million euros to Harpo Productions, the production company of interviewer Oprah Winfrey. The broadcast on CBS, in prime time on Sunday evenings, attracted some 17 million viewers. These are numbers that are normally reserved for very large sports competitions. In the United Kingdom, Harry and Meghan’s ‘home market’, the commercial channel ITV reportedly paid about 1 million pounds (1.2 million euros).
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In many other countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, the rights were also bought by commercial broadcasters. Not so in Flanders, where the public broadcaster ran off with the interview. How much the VRT paid for it was not officially disclosed. The amount of EUR 60,000 is circulating in the market.
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Relevance
Under normal circumstances, a documentary about British royals here would sell for several thousand euros. Of course that price rises for a sensational interview that has been about the tongues for days. Both DPG Media (the broadcaster behind VTM) and SBS (which operates the Play channels) would have been willing to pay more than 30,000 euros, but the VRT won the argument by immediately increasing to 60,000 euros in a subsequent bidding round.
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That was too ambitious for the commercial broadcasters. “You can’t earn back those amounts with advertising anyway,” says a source. ‘Anyone who buys this interview does it to gain more relevance. There are only a few of those unique moments each year. With this, the VRT shows that it wants to go very broadly with One. ‘
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There are only a few of those unique moments each year. With this, the VRT shows that it wants to go very broadly with One.
Source in the television world
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According to VRT spokesman Bob Vermeir, the interview with Harry and Meghan is in line with what the public broadcaster already offers. ‘Royalty and royal houses are relevant to a wide audience. We also bought ‘The Windsors’ for Canvas and last year we made a series about King Filip.’
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The fact that the price tag is high is also because it concerns content that is ideally suited for linear television: with exclusive images that everyone talks about or tweet about, you can still bind a large group of viewers live to the screen. In addition, the VRT can also use them to highlight its streaming platform VRT NU.
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©EPA
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