Raidió Teilifís Éireann

Raidió Teilifís Éireann (Irish pronunciation: [ˈradʲo ˈtʲɛlʲəfʲiːʃ ˈeːrʲən]; Radio [and] Television of Ireland; abbreviated as RTÉ) is a semi-state company and the national public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on 31 December 1961, making it one of the oldest continuously operating public service broadcasters in the world. RTÉ also publishes a magazine called the RTÉ Guide, published weekly, which is orientated around RTÉ television and radio.

RTÉ is financed by a television licence fee and through advertising. Some RTÉ services are only funded by advertising, while other RTÉ services are only funded by the licence fee. RTÉ is a statutory body, run by a board appointed by the Government of Ireland. General management of the organisation is in the hands of the Executive Board headed by the Director-General. RTÉ is regulated by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. Radio Éireann, RTÉ's predecessor and at the time a section of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, was one of 23 founding organisations of the European Broadcasting Union in 1950.

RTÉ2

RTÉ2 is a free-to-air general entertainment channel operated by Irish national broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann. It is available to 98% of viewers across the Republic of Ireland through Saorview and available in Northern Ireland through Freeview. It is also available through digital television services Virgin Media Ireland, Sky Ireland, eVision and in Northern Ireland on Virgin Media. Content from RTÉ2 is available on the RTÉ Player both nationally and internationally.

RTÉ2 broadcasts in both standard definition and high-definition.

History

In the 1970s the Irish government considered three options for the introduction of a second television service: the re-transmission of BBC1 Northern Ireland; authorization of an independent commercial service; or charging RTÉ with the establishment of a second national channel. It was the last of these that was finally chosen.

The channel, the Republic of Ireland's second, began transmissions on 2 November 1978 with an opening broadcast of a gala ceremony from Cork Opera House. Owing to a technical fault, audio from BBC2 was played during the countdown instead of the proper soundtrack, and when the channel commenced programmes, there was no audio for the initial 15 seconds or so. At first the new channel broadcast in the evenings only. The first broadcast on RTÉ 2 was on 6 June 1978, it was largely aimed at those in "single channel land". Programmes included The Streets of San Francisco and Duchess of Duke Street.

RTÉ One

RTÉ One (Irish: RTÉ a hAon) is the flagship television channel of Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), and it is the most popular and most watched television channel in Ireland. It was launched as Telefís Éireann on 31 December 1961, it was renamed RTÉ Television in 1966, and it was renamed as RTÉ 1 upon the launch of RTÉ 2 in 1978. RTÉ is funded partly by the licence fee; the remainder of the funding is provided by commercial advertising. Because RTÉ is funded partly by the licence fee it shows considerably fewer advertisements than most other channels available in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

RTÉ One is available to 98% of the Irish population in High Definition on the Saorview DTT service. It is carried on all the digital television services in the Republic of Ireland such as Sky Ireland, Virgin Media Ireland and Magnet Networks. It is also available in Northern Ireland via Saorview overspill, the UK Freeview service, satellite provider Sky, and cable provider Virgin Media. The channel is also available online through RTÉ Live.

RTÉ.ie

RTÉ.ie is the brand name and home of RTÉ's online activities, located at the URL http://rte.ie. The site began publishing on 26 May 1996. According to RTÉ, it operates on an entirely commercial basis, receiving none of the licence fee which funds much of RTÉ's activity. The site, it says, is funded by advertising and section sponsorship. However, RTÉ has had to defend itself from allegations of anti-competitiveness brought about by licence fee support.

As of 2010, it is among the top 4,000 most visited websites globally, by Alexa rankings, and among the top 10 sites in Ireland with certified impressions of over 75 million per month and over 4 million unique users. A recent redesign of the website's home page, news and business sections took place on 13 October 2010.

A revamp of the website is due late 2014.

Background

The site provides an array of content under the different banners (IBD's) that it operates, such as Radio, television, News, Business, Sport etc. These sub-sites, are interlinked and offer streaming of sound and picture where appropriate, with a huge archive for certain programmes going back to 1998.