Broadcasting live the visit of Pope Francis to Chile

Abstract Papal visits to different countries are very important to bring about closeness between the Church and the people. To assure the effectiveness of a visit, it is essential to have a well-planned broadcast of the event. The broadcast will transmit the message to the audience and move it beyond time and space, transforming a local homily into a universal message. The experience of organizing the broadcast of a visit can be used as a road map to futures visits; this work may help to plan a broadcast from scratch and understand the essential role TV has on today’s apostolic trips. A good broadcast strategy will facilitate the relationship with the media and make it easier to generate content and news with the provided feeds.


Introduction
in-flight press conference from Dublin to Rome: Greg Burke: 'Holy Father, thanks for this time you're dedicating to us after two intense days. Certainly, there were difficult moments. In Ireland, there was the matter of abuses, but also very beautiful moments: the Festival of Families, testimonies from families, the meeting with the young couples and the visit to the Capuchins, but maybe you want to say something else first … ' Pope Francis: 'To say thank you, because if I am tired I think of you who have work, work, work … I thank you so much for your effort and your work. Many thanks.' (Pope Francis 2018) The central part of a papal visit to any country is the message and the experience of having the Pope amongst us. To be able to capture both the message and the moment and be able to transmit them to the audience, you need a well-prepared plan and lots of work. That plan needs to cover all the possible areas related to the visit, including people, logistics and equipment.
Understanding the importance of the broadcast, the way that the broadcast will preserve the message and suspend it from time and place is central. You need a combination of appropriate technical equipment and excellent understanding of the essence of the event, together with the right camera position and shots. It is crucial to have good coverage of the event, but the team must also understand and live its essence: if it is a mass, it must 'feel' like a mass in the broadcast.
This work will take us to South America, to the papal visit to Chile, in January 2018 as part of the apostolic journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Chile and Peru. I was the head of the broadcasting team during the visit and the idea is to explain the process we went through, the decisions we took and how we organized the full three-day long broadcast of the visit. We will cover the preparation, the challenges, the solutions and the event itself.

Background of the pope visit to Chile
Pope Francis had been invited to visit Chile by president Michelle Bachellet in previous years (Salinas and Dur an 2014) and by the Chilean Episcopal Conference (Cech) during the 'Ad Limina' visit to Rome on February 2017. The invitation was accepted that year in May; the Pope made his apostolic trip to Chile and Peru during the second half of January 2018. He visited Chile between January 15 and 18, then Peru between January 18 and 22.
These visits are always complex (de la Cierva, Black and O'Reilly 2016). This one was organised by the bishops' conference in Chile in coordination with the Vatican; whilst the dates were informed by the Vatican, all the logistics were arranged locally. The first step, which was previous to the release of the news about the papal trip, was a visit called an 'avanzatta', that is, a visit from a very small group of people from the Vatican to undertake fieldwork and coordination to be able to clarify all the logistics. This first visit also proposed the different places for the pope's stops and coordinated the activities of each day.
The official statement was released after the entire advance visit authorised the logistics, security and the country's political and social climate. The Vatican confirmed the visit on 19 June 2017, setting the dates for 15-18 January 2018 for the apostolic journey of his holiness pope Francis to Chile and Peru (15-22 January 2018) (PUC 2017).
The Vatican's confirmation of the dates put the local organisation under high pressure, as they had only six months to organise a three-day visit. The local bishops' conference needed to act fast: they were required to arrange a visit commission to organise all the schedules. For the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1987, the Vatican accepted the invitation of the Chilean government eighteen months in advance, giving the organization plenty of time to coordinate a six-day visit, with eight cities and a huge impact in the population. This new visit was confirmed six months in advance, which is not much time compared to Pope St. John Paul II's visit, but plenty of time compared to the 40 days advance notice for Pope Francis' Mexico visit in 2016. The security team is always happier with fewer days in advance, but logistics require more time.
The first two local representatives the Vatican needed to coordinate with were the communication and liturgy heads. These two people worked from the beginning in direct coordination with the Vatican. Even before any official news was released, they travelled to the Vatican to hold meetings there and understand how the protocol and communications must be handled.

The visit to a new Chile
If you search for Chile you will find this long and narrow country in South America, hanging from the Andes, open to the Pacific Ocean, situated alongside Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. Chilean society has changed a lot during the past years. Chile used to be a very traditional and Catholic country; the polls indicated in 1995 that there were 74% of the population were Catholics, according to the investigations of Latino Bar ometro (Latinobar ometro 2018). That number has changed dramatically since then, decreasing a steady 1.3% annually, taking the number of Catholics in Chile in 2018 down to 45%.
Chile may have fewer Catholics today, but technology has made them more aware of what is happening around them, and the visit of a Pope was an important event. Even those who were not Catholic may have wished to listen to or follow the visit. According to Cadem poll (Cadem 2018) on June 2017, 79% of the people were aware of the visit of the Pope; that number increased to 98% in the first days of January 2018. The same study showed that 52% of those interviewed had positive or very positive thoughts about Pope Francisco.
The Church in Chile tended to be very traditional in previous years and had a very strong influence over society. The Catholic Church has educated and defined the soul of the real Chile but has also disappointed some people. Chilean society has trusted in the Church in accord with the rest of Latin America. The percentage of those with trust in the Church was around 70% in the nineties with a slight descent to 65% in the early 2000s. That was until 2011 when the first sexual abuse scandals of the church in Chile were revealed; since then the confidence number has dropped to 38% and has been around that figure for the last few years (Latinobar ometro 2018).
The most complex issue regarding the abuses in Chile has been the Karadima case, concerning a parish priest who generated 40 vocations for the Catholic Church during about 30 years of ministry. Four of his recruits are bishops today. When the first abuse accusations appeared against Karadima, they were underestimated because of his work in the Church (Molina 2018).
Born in Argentina and educated in Chile, Pope Francis was elected on 13 March 2013, and since then he has been a 'first' in many respects: he was the first Jesuit Pope and also the first American Pope, and the first from the Southern Hemisphere. Never seen before were the pictures of him at the night of his election coming back to his hotel in the cardinal's bus rather than his Papal car. From the beginning we understood that this pope was different, he had made huge efforts in bringing the church closer to the people, and focusing on Christ as the centre. His efforts towards cleaning and being transparent regarding Church issues are enormous.
Before January 2018 he made more than 30 pastoral visits to different countries. This new trip added two new countries to the list. Pope Francis is felt by the people here to be close to them; his mother language is Spanish, and he was born just on the other side of the Andes. Understanding his personality and his aim to bring the Catholic Church back to the centre of people's life is crucial, and more crucial when planning the broadcast of his visit. He is spontaneous and will often stray from protocol. He will get closer to people and he will get out of the car and talk to the crowds. It's always important to leave space when following him. These breaks from normal protocol often happen when he gets in or out his car, or returns to his residence during visits.

How the trip arose
During his visit, the Pope's focus was to meet with different sectors of Chilean people. He had three big masses, each one with a specific topic: immigration in the north, poverty in Santiago and native people in the south. He also had specific messages he delivered at the meetings with the Government, the priests, the youth, the university, the Jesuits family and prisoners.
The itinerary was made in coordination with Rome, having both public and private events; the public events managed by the visit organization commission and the private ones managed directly between the institutions and the Vatican. It was a really busy schedule, even more so if you consider that the Pope is 81 years old and has some health problems.
The original idea was to visit Santiago, Temuco, Concepcion, and Iquique. In Santiago, the Pope was to visit the seminary and the cathedral, but since the seminary was too small to receive all the priests the meeting with them was moved to the cathedral. The meeting with the youth was moved to Maip u, to an iconic Basilica which has been in the centre of Chilean history. The visit to Concepcion was cancelled because of the time.
The planned schedule was, on the first day, for the Pope to be received by president Bachellet at the airport in an official ceremony, then he would be taken by car to the Vatican Embassy (Nunciatura). On the way, after quick stop in a church, he would change from the closed car to the 'papamovil' to be able to be seen by the people who would be expecting him on the streets.
Day two would begin the next morning at 8 am with a visit to the government office, Moneda Palace, for the meeting with the authorities and the president. After that would be the first huge event in O'Higgins park, a mass with the clergy of Santiago. Then, back to the embassy to have lunch. During the evening was a visit to a female rehabilitation centre, to meet the inmates. Then they would move to the cathedral to have a reunion with religious and clergy: the nuns, priests and bishops of Chile. On the Pope's return there would be a visit to Padre Hurtados sanctuary -Padre Hurtado is one of the first Chilean saintsand back to the Nunciatura.
On day three they would visit Temuco, a city 600 km south of Santiago. The day would start with a plane trip to Temuco, arriving there at 9:40, and then the second huge mass, with the native people of the south and the representative of the local communities. After that, a quick visit to a convent to have some lunch and then back to Santiago and a visit to the youth at Maip u. After that meeting, he would visit the Catholic university and then back to the Nunciatura.
The last day of the visit to Chile would also be the first day of his visit to Peru. He was to leave Santiago at 8:30 am, and arrive at Iquique 1500 km north of Santiago, where the third large mass would take place, followed by lunch at a retreat house and then back to the plane to fly to Lima, another 1500 km north from Iquique. Here he would land in the second country of his apostolic trip.
That was the itinerary, a very dense agenda, with four massive events and 2100 km of distance between them. After that trip plan, came the logistics to be able to broadcast all of that! Chile is a long and thin country; it is more than 4000 km long and only 400 km wide. The Pope's visit aimed to be inclusive, so the commission decided to hold events in the south, another in the north, and those two together with the main events in Santiago. To be able to communicate all the events we needed two main things. First, people! We needed volunteersthey were the most important element during the large events and liturgies. They had the task to guide, control, help and communicate information to the people who assisted with the events. The second element was infrastructure, the need of audio-visual equipment to bring the event to the people who were at the places with screens and audio, and to the rest of the country and the world through the television.
Logistics started with people; the overwhelming response of volunteers for the visit gave the organization more than 20,000 people willing to cooperate. The average age was 27 years, with 93% from Chile, and Argentinians in second place. The volunteers helped during the days leading up to and during the visit. They were vital to the effort, but they needed to be organized and trained. Faith will move mountains and faith gave us a huge amount of free people to help. To organize these volunteers to be able to achieve the tasks was our commitment.
In terms of infrastructure, our team divided the events into three types: The massive, the mid-size and quick pass events. In that way, we could assign the right resources to each one of them.
We had four Massive events during the three days, three masses and one liturgy (OHiggins Park mass, Temuco mass, Maip u liturgy and Lobito mass).
We also had eight mid-size events during the Pope's stay: Arrival ceremony at the airport, visit to the Government house, visit to the female jail, visit to the cathedral (meeting with the Chilean church), visit to the Jesuits family (San Alberto Hurtado), visit to the Catholic University and the departure ceremony from the Iquique Airport.
The quick pass events were: San Luis Beltran, the daily in-and-out of the Nunciatura and the entrance of the cathedral.
The infrastructure needed to have different TV coverage on all of them, and we also needed coverage on the movement between them, to be able to create a fluid live coverage of the visit every day. Each event needed to overlap the beginning of the next one, so we had a smooth transition between them.
The huge masses required large venues; we needed four of them, two in Santiago, one in Temuco and one in Iquique. In Santiago, we had OHiggins park, a huge 80 hectares park in the centre of Santiago, well connected with highways and public transport. The first mass needed to be able to host 500,000 participants, also 700 priests and 80 bishops. This place is used every year for the military parade, so is equipped with fibre optics and a direct view to the main hill where the transmitters are located (for the microwave connection). It had good access and enough places to accommodate all the TV trucks and also the press trucks. The main difficulty at this place was the position of the cameras, we needed to be able to cover all the movement of the Pope's 'papamovil' inside the park and amongst the people (Figure 1).
The second place in Santiago was Maip u Temple, a big church in a Santiago satellite city called Maip u. The temple has an outside esplanade perfectly shaped to receive more than 60,000 youths. The temple also had fiber optics installed and line of sight to the transmitters on the hill.
In Temuco, the only place we had to hold 200,000 people, was the old runway, actually used as an air force base. Conversation had to be started to get authorization to use this space. Connectivity was a problem since the air base had no fibre optics connection, so we had to ask the local telephone company to install this.
In Iquique, the idea was to celebrate the mass in Lobito, a place located between the city and the airport, between the mountains and the sea, full of contrasts, with nothing but dust. Lobito was the most complex of the chosen places, located in the middle of the desert, with no electricity, no Internet and very poor cellular coverage. We needed to implement the basics to be able to have a stable signal, so we requested that the telephone company install fiber optics which they did, more than 200 km to interconnect Lobito with Iquique city. That connection, allowed us to bring just one flyaway satellite dish as backup and use the fibre as the main broadcast channel.
For the mass, to receive the people, the idea was to design self-contained sections, each one with all the elements needed to cover the needs of the pilgrims during their visit. So each of the sections had a speaker array, water, a first aid tent, toilets and security. In that way, we distributed the movements of people only inside each of the sections. In addition to that, we had eight huge led screens 9 m wide and 5 m tall, and 24 amplification towers. Each one of the towers was interconnected with an optical fibre, to avoid any delays and interference (Figure 1).

TV broadcast: too many signals
The equipment needed to broadcast this huge event was found in production companies and TV stations, the best solution here was to outsource the service as has been done in previous large church events (de la Cierva, Black and O'Reilly 2016). The idea is to outsource the equipment but not the TV direction or the control over the broadcast. We needed full and universal access to the signal 24/7 during the visit to assure proper distribution. We combined the four biggest TV stations in Chile -Canal 13, TVN, Mega and Chilevisionand the biggest private production company, ChileFilms.
For the three massive events, we had 12 digital HDTV camera trucks, each one able to transmit using optic fibre and a satellite uplink. To the normal HD truck cameras, we added a 'drone' for the aerial shots. It's always necessary to have a backup line to reach the transmission hub, so each of the trucks used dual connection capabilities: fibre optics as main and uplink (satellite) as backup.
The 'pope car' mobile camera broadcasted until the entrance of the event, so all the movements of the Pope among the people were captured with 40Â telephoto lenses of the cameras located at the top of 5 m towers. The distribution of the cameras provided a continuous shot of the entrance, all the ceremony and the exit. We needed to have a close up of the Pope at the altar and at the reading place, and very wide shots to show the massive gathering of people.
During the ceremony, we had four main areas of interest: the altar, where the mass was conducted; the choir: to show the singing; the steps in front of the altar, where the offering happened, and the audience: the people who attended the event. We had to show them all, each one at a time; so defining the position of the cameras was crucial. It was necessary to have cameras as close to the altar as possible and some others at the centre in the back. We installed six fixed cameras mounted in platforms at 5 m high, together with one 12 m crane at the chorus to facilitate nice moving shots, two portable cameras at both sides of the altar, one with the signage language for the screens, plus the 'drone' for the aerial shots. That gave us a smooth and quality broadcast.
We had a trade-off with the Liturgy people from the Vatican. They asked us not to have moving cameras (on cranes) in front of the Pope during his homily, but we needed to have them there for the other parts of the mass. So the deal was this: we moved the cameras away during the homily and captured the homily with the fixed shots, and then the cameras moved back in place for the rest of the mass.
For the mid-size events, we used TV press trucks, each one able to accommodate up to five cameras, using a dual microwave link, one as the main signal the other as backup. The mid-size events included the Pope speaking but not huge audiences. We defined the position according to the place, normally one 12 m crane outside for the arrival and departure, which allowed us to be able to see above the people and move to have a clean shot. Inside we had the other four cameras, in a 'view connected' way to follow the Pope's movements, the event itself and the exit. The most complex event was the meeting with the Jesuits family at the Padre Hurtado tomb. The first part of the event was private, so no cameras were allowed inside the meeting, but we managed to film the entrance and the second part of the meeting outside.
It is good to keep in mind that we also had the 'car cam' outside; always ready to have a signal, so we basically had two different broadcast units at each place. The car cam was always located in front of the Pope's car, so it was able to capture his movements in and out of the car.
The press truck outside the Nunciatura has also five cameras and stayed there for the whole visit, as the Pope always slept at the same place. That unit caught the daily exit and arrival of the convoy. We had a scheduled time for his departure every day, but the real indicator was the movement of people, when the car was about to leave, we saw people running and that was the signal for us.
For the moving broadcast car, we used a liveU unit with an extender, which gave us more than 10 sim cards with 3g or 4g networks together to have a solid HD signal on the move. In addition to that, we attached the camera to a stabilised grip in the roof of the car in order to have a very smooth movement. Inside the car, we had one camera operator and one broadcast engineer. The camera had a clean shot of the 'papamovil' and also the ability to pan left and right on the turns to keep the shot stable. We used that system during the travels; the systems digitalized the image and sent it as data packages to the main unit located at the broadcast centre, where this information was transformed back into an HD video signal. This process has a latency or delay, sometimes a few seconds' other times more. This latency could be critical if we had a speech or another source with better connection at the same time, but as it was used alone and only during the car movements this was not a risk. The data transfer needed to be stable, the more speed we had the more complex it was for the signal to be stable and the more latency we encountered.
But what if the signal got lost during the movements? We were concerned about the stability of the mobile networks; they tended to collapse when too many people connected. Too much speed will produce data loss, and frame drops during movements. We contacted the city hall; they gave us access to more than 50 street cameras operated by them under our command, so we always had the Pope on a screen! With a person on site and a dual microwave connection, we always had the current and next camera sent to the IBC. These cameras were HD cameras; a more compressed HD that the one we were used to in Broadcast TV, but in a blackout from the car camera or a too long shot we had more points of view. Each of the generated signals was sent to the broadcast hub; once there we selected the best shots for the live broadcast.
At most one million people were able to attend the masses and meetings with the Pope. The TV broadcast was in charge of delivering his message to them, to the 15 million who did not attend and also to the rest of the world. Our work was to have different signals for different audiences, the local screen signal had sign language included with the screens allocated across the event. The idea was to bring details of what was going on at the previous meeting, and then once the Pope arrived, what was going on at the main altar. Many people attended the events and watched them on the big screens. The shots displayed on the big screen needed to be different from the main signal one, close-up shots were shown and we avoided massive people shots, since people want to see the Pope not themselves. That signal came out from a different switch than the main broadcast switch of the event. The main signal was broadcast to the rest of the people, for the coming generations, and for the rest of the world.
The first decision we took was to be able to have a continued transmission all day long, being able to broadcast live all the events and also the movements between them. During the breaks normally at lunchtime, the idea was to broadcast highlights of the previous events of the same day and the ambience of the evening events which were already crowded. This strategy had its complexities but ensured a continued feed into the satellite and to the media during the whole day, allowing them to receive live signals for all the news and flash news broadcasts whenever they needed.
The second decision we took was to have one centralized broadcast centre, the IBC, International Broadcast Centre, where all the signals from all the different sources were coordinated, managed and switched. The IBC also generated two different main signals, one clean feed, and one with sign language for the local TV channels so they could choose which one to use. That gave us full control of what was happening, and also assured the continuity of the signal in case something happened.
For the events outside Santiago, the strategy was the same, we had one TV truck at each big event: the Temuco mass and the Lobito mass. We had a small news truck at the small event, the Iquique departure ceremony, and two portable 3g Car mounted cameras to be able to capture the movements from the airport to the event. We sent one 3g camera to the Temuco in advance to receive the Pope at the airport, and then the same one to Iquique.
All the TV trucks were connected with a backup signalthat means a dual connection for each one. The big ones had optical fibre and satellite or fibre and microwave; the new ones had dual microwave connections. We had a good array of signals, well distributed and all of them collaborating to a central HUB. We had new challenges now, the first: coordination, how to be able to coordinate all these signals as the IBC needed to have continuous communication with all the signal generators, before and during each one broadcast. To be able to do this, we implemented an app-enabled intercom system called Unity intercom, the software utilized a centralized hardware and each of the directors of the units had his own mobile phone to connect to the IBC. It was a smart and cheap way to keep everybody connected. The other big challenge was to send the master broadcast back to everybody, so they could monitor how each of the units was broadcasting and when they were on air or off air. To be able to do this, we left an HD signal in a satellite un-encoded, with 4 audio channels, the Pope's mic (mono), the mixed end of the event (stereo) and ambience only (mono) so everybody had access to download the signal and remix it as they were on field. The parameters of this satellite were sent everywhere, nationally and internationally. This was also very useful to the different events' on-site screens, because the people at those events, while waiting for the Pope to arrive, were able to watch live what was happening at the previous event, and also keep watching the next one. This satellite signal was also used by the radio stations nationwide, to have a direct daily feed from each of the events. (Figure 2) The other use we had for this satellite signal was to generate an FTP server with each of the events encoded in mp4 HD isolated as a unique downloadable file. This was very helpful for the web sites, they were able to download and use all the video and also extract what they needed to use or freeze the frames as pictures. These files were ready once the event has ended and were identified with the date and name of the event.
The main idea here was to facilitate the work of the press, allowing them to have access to all the live feeds at the press rooms and 'ready to publish' online material. Pope Francis has a huge appeal to reporters and press in general. It even seems safe to say that communications are a crucial dimension of Francis' pontificate (Guzik and O'Reilly 2016).

Collaboration and coordination
The idea of the broadcast was to have one daily event that started when the Pope departed the Nunciatura and ended when he returned back again. The schedule of activity was quite intense, but he normally took a quick rest after lunch, which gave us time to catch up and be prepared for the evening schedule. So basically, we were able to broadcast one daily program with replays and highlights at the moments he was travelling by plane or resting. That gave us plenty of time to coordinate the different signals and reassign the press trucks for the next day's coverage. This one daily live event was very useful for a lot of different people; it told the people at the massive events that the Pope was near, the ones in charge of warming up the atmosphere had exact information as they saw him on the big LED screens. It also allowed the police to be prepared for the imminent arrival, and the people on streets to see a live signal on the internet, satellite and free openair TV.
All the big TV networks in Chile operate from Santiago, so outside the capital, there were not any big TV infrastructure. The TV infrastructure needed to broadcast the Temuco and the Lobito mass were sent from Santiago by roada long trip, so all the equipment needed to be ready to depart a week before the event. The equipment needed to do all the broadcasts came from the main four TV stations in Chile, and from a private production company that normally transmits all the football matches during the year (Canal 13 TV, TVN, CHV, Mega and Chilefilms). Each of the four TV stations had different equipment, and with the combined effort of them all, we were able to fulfil the needs. Some of the equipment needed to be reassigned every day during the visit, allowing sufficient time to setup. To be able to have a smooth and coordinated transmission, it was necessary to coordinate the efforts of the local TV stations and the private production companies. The first meetings were designed to understand the global needs and assign responsibility for each of the events. We divided the events and assigned each one a producer, with each of them contributing to a common feed. The coordination of the interaction between the different stations was sorted out in regular meetings during the three-month period prior to the event. At each of the meetings, we addressed the issues and characteristics of each of the broadcasts. Each station assumed one part of the load, broadcasting each one of them to the main switch, and each had full access to the signal when they decided to use it. Also, a clean feed was available in the satellite for free to all those interested in having the signal, free of charge and 24/7. This same signal was available at the pressrooms in the massive mass and in the Santiago main pressroom to everybody.
The routes where the Pope moved where coordinated between the Vatican security and the local Police, the places where he would change from the closed car to the open one was also agreed between them. This information was important for us, because the speed of travel would change depending on the car, normally moving faster in a closed car than in the open 'papamovil'. We checked all the routes with the police, rehearsed them and did the same movements with the 3g camera to be sure the signal was very stable. During the months leading up to the visit, we made technical visits to all of the places; we defined the camera positions for every place to be able to have a smooth transition between the car and the TV truck for each location. We solved some connectivity problems installing hundred of kilometres of fibre optics, to be able to have a dual broadcast connection at each of the locations. We knew that once the plane touched Chilean ground this would become a very intense and high pressure thee day job. We were prepared.

On the road
The visit started at 7:50 pm on Monday, 15 January 2018 when the Alitalia plane touched Arturo Merino Benites airport runway. From that point on, all the movements where scheduled and supervised by the security team and the Vatican, and the Official TV team was in charge of the broadcast. At the airport, we managed to have one camera at the control tower, so the first contact was by radio between the pilot and the tower operator. We captured the plane in the air with the 40x zoom and the camera; finally, the runway and all the movement until it arrived alongside the red carpet. That first day we followed the Pope's car from the airport to the first stop with the car cam, which gave us a very stable image. Then we switched to a press truck for the quick visit to the church, the car cam again and street cameras until the Nunciatura, where the broadcast was handed to the press truck. We closed the first evening with highlights. The signal worked very smoothly, we had no black outs, and a very steady transition between the mobile cam and the TV trucks.
On day one we started from the Nunciatura with the press truck, then car cam to the government meeting, where the broadcast was switched to a production truck. Back to the car and to the Parque O'Higgins mass. Then car cam to the Nunciatura and highlights of arrival and day 1, in the evening. Car cam to the jail, press truck at the jail, then car cam to the cathedral and production truck at the cathedral. Car cam to Padre Hurtado, then press truck at Padre Hurtado and car cam back to the Nunciatura, with the support at the arrival of the press truck and Highlight of day one (Figure 3).
On day three we started from the Nunciatura with the press truck, then car cam to the airport, after that, highlights of day one, car cam at Temuco airport to the mass, production truck at the mass. Then car cam to the lunch and then car cam back to the airport; Highlights of day two. Car cam to Maip u, production truck in Maip u, car cam to the university, Production truck at the university, car cam to the Nunciatura, press truck at the Nunciatura, highlights of day two.
On day three we started with car cam to the airport, highlights of the previous days, production truck at the airport in Iquique, car cam to the mass, production truck at the mass, car cam to the lunch, highlights, car cam to the airport, production truck at the airport and the final visit highlights.

Post-event analysis
There are always issues about costs of a visit this big. It was in the press during the lead up to the visit, discussing who was paying for the visit and why the State must invest in these kinds of visits. The money needed to manage all the events and the broadcasts was raised by the central organization committee, while the government invested in the public security, the police and their logistics. The government also paid for the press centre, and the bandwidth at all the events for the press. Government investment was necessary in any case for any head of state visit. According to the post-visit summary document (Reporte 2018), the total income of the visit was $6564 million Chilean pesos, about US $10 million that was used to pay for the direct costs of the visit. From that amount, 21% came from people, the rest from companies. The operation produced a surplus of 1.1 million dollars, which were donated to benefit institutions. The visit also moved people from Argentina and Bolivia into Chile, and from other cities to the cities that had the events generating an increase in hotel occupancy, restaurant and tourism.
If you take a closer look at the numbers, you can realize that even when trust in the Church in Chile has dropped to near 30% and the percentage of people who define themselves as Catholics to 45%, the audience TV peak was near 55 points of rating, and the Pope's message was broadcast live by the four bigger national TV stations. This could mean that the message of the Pope reached a broader distribution than the people's self-definitions. They recognized the Pope as a figure of good will and a promoter of peace and understanding. Out of the more than 18 million Chilean population, 98% was aware of his visit.
The TV has the power to move an event outside the time and space; you can view the event many years after and feel like you are there again. The events themselves, without the power of broadcast, can be remembered, can be viewed in pictures, but the only way to re-experience the event is via TV. Big church events need the presence of TV, not only a camera, or a team of producers; the church events need to understand the power of TV and video to transport the live event to other places and years. To be able to capture the essence of the event you need a technical team that has the experience of faith. Without this, you will miss something in the broadcast. You need to add feelings to the broadcast. A mass without faith is a poor event; you must transmit the faith within the broadcast. A deep understanding of what is going on will enhance the broadcast, will include the people, and will make them part of the mass.
To generate a good broadcast of a live event is complex, to generate live coverage of a three-day event across multiple locations is even more so. All the complexities that you can assign to a one location live event, you have to multiply for the number of different locations. The broadcasting teamwork needed to be done in parallel to the main organisation, so all the different issues could be coordinated from the beginning. Organising a papal visit is always complex; the Vatican gives you a lot of freedom in relation to what to do and how to do itmay be too much freedom. In any event, there is an 'organization of the organization'central serviceswhich liaises with all the areas and provides them with the material and human resources they need to do their jobs (de la Cierva et al. 2018). This 2018 visit included 11 meetings between pastoral and state visits; four of them were massive events, three masses and one massive youth liturgy. The infrastructure of the country is not prepared to deal with these kinds of massive events, so the coordination among the organization, the government, the armed forces and the local producers was essential to be able to articulate all the needs, logistics and implements needed in such a task.
A papal visit to any country is a major event for that country. For Chile, the last papal visit was 31 years ago, and the country and the world has changed a lot since then. Technology has greatly improved the levels of fidelity, sound and video of the events. The people demand quality, good audio and good video and a well-planned broadcast. TV must be able to transport the audiences to the place to see, feel and experience the event as if they were there. The other goal of the TV broadcast is to freeze the event in time, capturing as it was, and to be able to reproduce this event to future generations.
The task was to provide a good experience to the people who attended the massive events, and also to the rest of the people at home. This needed to be done with special dedication, a multi-disciplinary team, the right amount of sensibility and up-todate equipment. To be responsible for such a broadcast is a huge challenge, but if all care is taken, if all the logistics are rigorously evaluated and decided, and then you stick to the planning, (with the help of the Holy Spirit) it will become a success.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Alejandro C. Reid is a Professor of Media at Universidad de los Andes and a TV executive with more than 20 years working in broadcast and digital platforms. During his career as executive producer, new media and new business director he has been creating and developing new content and new projects. With both creative and technological experience, an MSc in digital TV and an MBA, Alejandro has produced and directed TV programs, documentaries, series and live shows. His work has won him a Golden Lion in Cannes and a 'Grand Prix'. During his career he has also led the digital transformation of various TV stations and has participated as speaker in industry meetings. He was the head of broadcast of the visit of Pope Francis to Chile in 2018.