"IN BUNDORAN" picked up by CIty Channel TV

‘In Bundoran’, the online video series, will be broadcast by cable television channel City Channel starting from Thursday 22nd October next.  The ‘In Bundoran’ series, aired this summer, proved very popular as it followed the journey of a Belgian lad from university student to surfer.   

City Channel broadcasts to Dublin, Galway, Waterford, Limerick and Cork via NTL Cable and is available in over 400,000 homes creating a potential audience base of 1.2 million viewers.  Shane Smyth, creator, co-producer and host of ’In Bundoran‘ said “We’re really surprised about how successful the series has been.  What started out as a promotional tool for surfing in Bundoran has had over 7,500 views on YouTube alone.  The reaction has been fantastic.  Myself and Killian are delighted that City Channel has chosen to show the series and hope that it will continue to portray Bundoran as a premiere surfing destination”. 

Killian O’Kelly from TurfnSurf Lodge and Surf School in Bundoran is co-producer, and has been delighted with the popularity of the series.  “It started off as a video diary following Pierre as he went from a non-surfer to intermediate surfer and we also thought it would help promote the sport of surfing and the town of Bundoran.  But now it’s being shown on TV, which is great!”

Vanessa Kaminski is Head of Programming at City Channel and commented “The City Channel network is delighted to have ‘In Bundoran’ in its autumn schedule. The show is a unique take on the Irish surfing environment and appeals to a wide audience. City Channel prides itself in supporting local productions and is confident the viewers will enjoy the series immensely.”

’In Bundoran‘ began life when 22-year-old Pierre Vandermeulen from Belgium called Killian O’Kelly at the "TurfnSurf" lodge & surf school looking for work experience in relation to his third level studies in tourism.  Pierre also wanted to learn to surf and so the seed of the idea was planted.  Killian duly obliged and on the eve of St Patrick’s Day 2009, Pierre arrived in Bundoran, County Donegal for three months, and we began documenting the progress of his surfing career.

O’Kelly comments - “Pierre had never surfed before however he was quite athletic so we hoped the learning curve wouldn’t be too great for him”. Guided by Killian, Patrick and the team of instructors from TurfnSurf in Bundoran, Pierre quickly picked up the surfing basics and was soon riding the waves on his 9 foot foam board at local beaches such as Tullan Strand and the Main Beach in Bundoran; in addition to surfing at Rossnowlagh, Strandhill and Streedagh (the latter two in Sligo).

Says O’Kelly – “Pierre has the one advantage that a lot of people wouldn’t have who are just starting out learning to surf – he can be in the water everyday, as opposed to just on weekends. He has the full facilities of both beaches in Bundoran at his disposal as well as the knowledge and guidance of all of our instructors here at "TurfnSurf" and this is why he has picked up the basics so fast”.

The whole idea of ‘In Bundoran‘ came about as we wanted to promote Bundoran as a premiere surfing destination. We thought it would be fun for people who were considering coming for a surf lesson for the first time to log onto our website to see how someone who has never surfed before, progressed through lessons. Ideas started rolling around between Bundoran school pals Killian O’Kelly and Shane Smyth, a radio producer based at Q102 in Dublin. “We’d always fancied the idea of a reality show about surfing and thought it would be a good idea to put a “mini series” together charting Pierre’s progress from first of all trying to find surf ‘In Bruges‘ to surfing the ultimate wave – The Peak in Bundoran”.

The journey is divided into 6 episodes which follow Pierre’s surfing career and include his very first surf lesson, a road trip around the north and west coast of Ireland, a lesson from Waveriders movie star Richard Fitzgerald and culminates with Richard and Killian bringing Pierre for his first session on Bundoran’s famous “Peak” surf break.

Pierre loved Bundoran so much that he has extended his stay and can be found helping out in the TurfnSurf Lodge, surfing the various surf breaks around Bundoran and having the odd pint of Guinness in the local.