 During and after its eight-part original run in 2008, the "hugely popular RTÉ Television tournament" was widely mentioned in the media including such newspapers such as "An Phoblacht", "The Belfast Telegraph", the "Evening Echo", the "Irish Examiner", the "Irish Independent", the "Irish News" and "The Irish Times".During the first series, a pop culture website asked its readers "If you weren’t watching Celebrity Bainisteoir last night, then where were you?