Televising the big event

When the great and the good of film and television gather on the red carpet in their tuxedoes and gowns to wow viewers around the world it is the perfect antidote to an otherwise gloomy January.

Sharp and often scathing host Ricky Gervais is once again expected to unleash his uncomfortable form of wit on Hollywood’s finest at this year’s 69th Golden Globes on 15 January. The line-up of nominees includes George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Glen Close, Kate Winslet and Meryl Streep.

The award ceremony, a major part of the film industry’s award season which culminates in the Academy Awards on 26 February, is one of the most watched awards around the world and is telecast in 167 countries.

The failure of its transmission would therefore be a major blow to the advertisers and broadcasters that have spent millions purchasing the rights to televise the event, not to mention disappointing the viewers at home.

Blank out

While not a particularly common hazard, given the efficiency of modern equipment and satellites, from time to time the screen does go blank.

“There was a failure during the broadcast of Miss World in South Africa in 2008,” says Rob Wood, a contingency underwriter at HCC Specialty. “One of the technicians hit the wrong switch and it cut off the signal for some time. There’s also been a boxing match where they lost the last round in one territory after there was an electrical storm.”

TV transmission failure insurance is a type of event or contingency insurance which covers the mechanical breakdown of transmission equipment.

“Even major sporting events insure for transmission failure because there’s such a lot riding on them,” says Wood. “It’s an easy policy to do but it’s a cover nobody thinks about because at the end of the day the chance of anything happening is remote.”

Human error is often to blame when a broadcast is interrupted. This was the cause of a glitch in 2010 when a transmission problem interrupted England’s World Cup match against the USA for ITV’s HD viewers. They were particularly upset at missing Steven Gerrard’s opening goal during the outage.

There are other potential causes of transmission failure, beyond technical malfunction or human error. “There’s always a chance of pre-emption risk – which is when you have an event of national or international importance and the satellites are seconded by the military or the government,” says Wood. “If you had a serious war situation you could have a high demand on satellites – they don’t always use military satellites.”

Breaking news could also literally steal the limelight if the story is big enough. “If the Queen died on the same evening as the awards all the TV stations would show tributes to the Queen, they probably wouldn’t show the Golden Globes,” says Wood.

Event cancellation

Other contingency covers taken out by the organisers of the award ceremony will protect against the sudden cancellation of the event, while terrorism and legal liability are also typically taken out.

“It’s a fairly standard cover in terms of cancellation,” says Chris Rackliffe, a contingency underwriter for Beazley. “There’s no real non-appearance cover. They could look to insure the person hosting the event although historically I don’t think they have because they can probably replace that person right up to the last minute if they need to.”

“Terrorism could be a concern for them because it is a high profile event and as a lot of these ceremonies are normally located in Los Angeles, an earthquake could be a factor. Strikes would also be a concern for the event organiser, especially with an event of this size,” he adds.

In 2008 a strike by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) led to the cancellation of the Golden Globes after SAG urged its members not to attend the award ceremony. The show was replaced with a press conference announcement of the winners.

Given the controversy caused by Ricky Gervais’ opening monologue last year, where his barrage of barbed put-downs offended some of the stars present, could they pull the plug if he goes too far this year?

Despite last year’s caustic comments, Gervais will once again be let loose on Hollywood on 15 January. As long as his monologue is presented in the spirit of comedy and entertainment everything will be fine, thinks Wood.

“I’ve looked into it in the past and providing you can demonstrate it is parody and you’re not setting out to be factual, then it’s difficult to make it actionable as slander,” he explains.

“Comedians tend to know exactly what they can get away with - and they get away with it on the grounds that it is parody and would not be slanderous in the eyes of the law.”