RTÉ looking to hire Fair City photographer for €60,000 per year

RTÉ is looking to hire a photographer to provide photo stills for Fair City and will pay them €240,000 for four years, for an average working week of 20 hours, or 3 days on set. 

RTÉ, as part of a public tender process, announced this week that it is inviting submissions from suitably qualified photographers to provide official stills photography for the popular RTÉ drama, Fair City. Fair City is Ireland's most popular soap. In the first 8 months this year, Fair City has generated 4.07 million streams on RTÉ Player alone - up 40% year on year.

The contract is guide price and is for a maximum of €60,000 per annum, or €240,000 over four years.

RTÉ says this contract arrangements provides better value than engaging professional photographers on an ad-hoc basis. 

It recently emerged that RTÉ had been paying €80,000 per year for the photo still. 

The successful photographer will be required to deliver a minimum of 16 approved photograph stills in both high and low resolution to Fair City each week, for 50 weeks per year, as specified by RTÉ.

They will be on set or on location an average of 20 hours per week over the course of three days. According to RTÉ, occasional weekend and night shift work may also required.

RTÉ says popular soaps, such as Fair City, with multiple characters and multiple unfolding storylines have a sustained need for high quality imagery across the year.

This imagery is then used across a variety of media outlets to help drive audiences to the show as viewers can now decide 'what to watch' based on the promotional image that appears on their platform.

Executive Producer or Fair City, Brigie de Courcy said: "I cannot overstate the importance of high quality, highly curated photography in promoting Fair City in the busy landscape of press and digital publicity. It is vital to have a skilled photographer to capture, in single frames, moments of drama that will intrigue our regular audience, and bring new viewers to Fair City."

The photo stills will be used weekly listings in print media, daily media and online media, TV interviews etc.

The contract is for professional photography services and associated image rights

A contract awarded under tender represents better value to RTÉ than engaging professional photographers on an ad hoc basis.

RTÉ says these services are currently being tendered for a four-year period on e-tenders to ensure that RTÉ is getting best value for money and in line with EU Procurement legislation and Irish Procurement Guidelines published by the Department of Finance.

This tender is a repeat tender and these services and/or products have been purchased previously under other contracts.