It was a good weekend for RTE as hundreds of thousands of people watched coverage of a range of special St Patrick’s Day programming. Over 913,000 viewers tuned in to 'Glaoch – A President’s Call' at some point across the two broadcasts on RTÉ Television.
The programme featured some of Ireland’s renowned writers, musicians and singers, as well as emerging artists, gathered at the home of the President of Ireland at his invitation. An average of 424,000 viewers watched the full hour long programme on RTÉ One television with an additional 38,000 viewers on average watching the extended version late night on RTÉ Two.
Live coverage of the St Patrick’s Festival Parade on RTÉ One also proved to be a big hit with viewers, with an average of 390,000 viewers watching the hour and half long broadcast of this year’s parade which was themed “Great Things Happen When We Get Together” and was presented by Des Cahill, Blathnaid Ni Chofaigh and Aidan Power.
RTE.ie was the website of choice for the Irish abroad this St Patrick’s weekend with a wealth of material available internationally, including the St. Patrick’s Festival Parade, 'Glaoch – The President’s Call', an RTÉ Archives exhibition looking back at St Patrick's Day events of the last five decades, as well as all the latest St Patrick’s Day festivities on RTÉ News and RTÉ Ten.
For the first time, RTÉ’s You Tube channel www.youtube.com/rte also streamed the St. Patrick’s Festival Parade and Glaoch - The President’s Call live worldwide, with over 89,000 streams accessed on the day and 72% of the demand coming from international audiences.
In addition 'Glaoch – The President’s Call' has proved hugely popular on the RTÉ Player while on demand streams to watch the St Patrick’s Festival Parade increased 50% on 2012.
