Diocese Drops TV Auction for Pope’s Visit to Monterey

Yielding to complaints from broadcasters and some church leaders, Roman Catholic Church officials in Monterey on Thursday dropped a controversial plan to auction television rights for coverage of September’s visit by Pope John Paul II.

The Diocese of Monterey’s offer to sell live coverage rights and favorable booth locations during the Pope’s outdoor Mass had set off an uproar among broadcasters and unsettled national church leaders who are planning the Pope’s nine-city tour.

The diocese had said the plan would help offset the estimated $2-million cost of the Pope’s five-hour visit. On Thursday, several representatives of news organizations offered privately to help explore other options to help the diocese defray media-related costs during the visit.

“The events of the past 10 days have reached a pitch and level of awareness far greater than we had ever imagined,” said diocese communications director Ted Elisee. “To say the least, the coverage this diocese has received has been a mixed blessing.”

The diocese dropped the plan after realizing “enough people were rankled by the idea” that it wouldn’t work, said Scott Lewis, South Bay bureau chief for San Francisco NBC affiliate KRON. Lewis was one of three broadcast representatives who met with diocese officials on Wednesday.

“As in many misunderstandings, one party must take the first step to offer a hand of reconciliation,” Elisee said. “We offer that hand by tabling our request for bids for selective broadcast rights to cover the papal visit.”

“I’m delighted,” Lewis said. “They opened the doors to other ideas to raise money.” He said television stations would pay for the costs of installing platforms, booths and other equipment they need to cover the Pope’s visit to the Monterey Peninsula on Sept. 17.

The broadcasters had protested a Feb. 5 letter Elisee sent to 60 television and radio stations, saying the diocese’s goal is to afford as many people as possible the opportunity to view the Pope’s visit on a live basis, and “to recoup part of the considerable costs associated with accommodating the media.”

The letter invited bidding for “selective live coverage broadcast rights” plugged the Pope’s visit as a “once-in-a-lifetime event.”

The Pope’s visit is expected to draw 100,000 people to Laguna Seca motor raceway and several thousand more to the tiny Carmel Mission.

The letter also noted that “should a national television network make an offer compatible with our goals, we would reject all local television bids so as to avoid a conflict between a network and rival local affiliates.”

Local broadcasters said the plan amounted to selling the news, and refused to bid for coverage rights. Private reservations about the bidding also were expressed by organizers at the U.S. Catholic Conference, which has a policy of not commercializing the papal visit but lacks the power to impose its policies on individual dioceses.

The diocese also drew some criticism for deciding to assess its parishes $15 for each admission ticket given them for the Mass. The tickets were to be distributed by the parishes without charge.