RTÉ.ie

RTÉ.ie

Screenshot of RTÉ.ie on 7 November 2012
Type of site
 Portal
Available in English
Irish/Gaeilge
Owner Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Created by RTÉ Publishing
Website http://www.rte.ie
Commercial Yes
Registration None
Launched 26 May 1996
Current status Active

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.[1] 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.[2]

As of 2010, it is among the top 4,000 most visited websites globally, by Alexa rankings,[3] and among the top 10 sites in Ireland[4] with certified impressions of over 75 million per month and over 4 million unique users.[5] A recent redesign of the website's home page, news and business sections took place on 13 October 2010.[6]

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.

Budget

References

The following figures were issued by RTÉ as part of their Annual report 2012[7]

Income

Income Type 2012
Licence Fee €4,069,000
Commercial Income €4,295,000
Total Income €8,364,000

Total Costs

Cost Type 2012
Network and other related costs Not provided
Sales Costs not given
Acquired Programming Part of costs associated with RTÉ Television and RTÉ Radio
Indigenous non-broadcast output costs €5,629,000
Irish Productions €3,333,000
Total Costs €8,962,000

Profit and Loss

2012
(€598,000)

Breakdown of Irish Productions

Production House 2012
RTÉ €3,135,000
Independent Producers €198,000
Total €3,333,000

The table below outlines RTÉ.ie's total in-house and commissioned programming by genre in 2008 and 2012:

Genre 2012
Factual €59,000
Drama €139,000
Entertainment €915,000
Music N/A
News,Current Affairs and Weather €1,115,000
Sport €905,000
Young Peoples Programming €199,000
Total €3,333,000

Sections

News

The News and Current Affairs Independent Business Unit is branded online, as on radio and television as RTÉ News. The news site was launched in 1998, with its own dedicated journalists. RTÉ News Online (later RTÉ Interactive News and now simply called RTÉ.ie News) was the first major site in Ireland to provide a rolling online news service with content written for the web. This section of the site offers access to all the news programmes broadcast by RTÉ on Radio and on Television. The huge archive offers streaming, in various quality back to 1999. Currently the site employs sectioning of news items, poll features, numerous microsites such as for General Elections, Referenda, and throughout the National Budget. The online news service had been operational 0700-2300GMT every day with the exception of Christmas Day, when it was replaced with a message wishing everyone a very merry Christmas.[8] It has now begun operating from 0600GMT daily.

RTÉ.ie's first Editor was Bree Treacy. She was succeeded by Joe Zefran, who was News Editor between 2007 and 2009, but Treacy continued as Entertainment Editor.

Sport

Founded in August 1999, RTÉ Sport offers access to a large number of sporting interests. This arm of the site provides live-updating of scores across various disciplines, and covers the range of Irish sports along with major world events and other smaller sports and codes with an Irish interest. The primary RTÉ.ie Sport journalists are James McMahon, Brendan Cole, Ed Leahy, Barry McEneaney, Tadhg Peavoy, Rob Wright and Johnny Proby.

Business

Originally dubbed OnBusiness this section commenced in 2001 (now called simply RTÉ Business).This section of the site provides up to the minute business from Ireland and carries major news stories from the wires. There is a recently added Technology News section, and again a large archive of data and video/audio available to download.

Entertainment

Originated from the A-C-E (Arts-Culture-Entertainment) site in 2000 (later RTÉ Interactive Entertainment then RTÉ Guide Entertainment) portal this section of the site provides access to celebrity news and gossip, there are photo galleries from recent international and Irish events. There are listings of movie-times, and a hige database of reviews. Music is also reviewed and promoted along with concerts. There is also a gaming section consisting mostly of gaming news and reviews. Theatre and book reviews are also presented. Along with blogs and other interactive cross-overs, this section is particularly active.

On 10 June 2010 at 10:10 RTÉ relaunched their Entertainment and RTÉ Guide websites. RTÉ TEN (The Entertainment Network) is the new name for RTÉ's online entertainment section. RTÉ TEN plans to be an entertainment news website for the social-media generation. It will connect with users through various social-media organisations such as Facebook and Twitter. RTÉ TEN introduces the RTÉ Guide's personalised TV Listings, which includes links to the RTÉ player's set of shows. Users can use Outlook or Google clanaders to TV listings and be able to invite friends to join them watching their favourite shows on social networking sites.[9]

Television

This section of the site provides access to listing of shows on all channels and also provides access to the mini-sites of RTÉ's broadcast programming including that produced in-house, commissioned and acquired internationally.

Radio

Similar to the TV section of the site, rte.ie/radio provides access to the broadcasters four fm radio stations' live streams as well as dedicated station sites and programme micro-sites.

Aertel

Main article: RTÉ Aertel

A live mirror of RTÉ's teletext system, RTÉ Aertel, is provided. Aertel was provided by the site from 1996, originally to provide the text news service, and is digitised by screen scraping the off-air broadcasts. The content from both RTÉ One (Aertel) and RTÉ Two (Aertel Plus) is available.

Performing groups

Youth & children

RTÉjr

Archives & Library

Access to themed selections from the RTÉ Libraries and Archives is also available through rte.ie, with new topics being added occasionally. Previous years' selections remain available, and cover radio back to the 1920s and television back to 1961.[10]

Secondary sections

Fashion was launched in 2008. Dating and classifieds were added in 2009.

  • Dating
  • Classifieds
  • Fashion
  • Food
  • Jobs
  • Property
  • Mobile
  • Motors
  • Shop
  • Travel
  • Weather

Audio and video content

Some RTÉ content is available without geographic restrictions in RealAudio or RealVideo formats, including virtually all news and events broadcasts on radio and television dating back to 1998, and most episodes of Prime Time and Nationwide dating back a number of years. Most other RTÉ-originated content such as Show Me the Money is also provided, but increasingly more and more content is restricted only to Ireland as the content has shifted over to the Ireland-only RTÉ player. Video streams vary between 56 and 225 kbit/s or higher and vary from RealMedia versions eight through ten. Many are direct dumps from RTÉ 1 and 2, and hence include their digital on-screen graphics, or even ad breaks. The site was one of the first to offer audio downloads, with FTP-hosted RealAudio 2 files being provided as far back as 1996, with streaming being introduced in 1997, initially using Xing Streamworks, and later moving back solely to Real. The majority of recent RTÉ television and radio shows have their own mini-sites, which vary from providing clips to full versions of the shows, as well as mp3 podcasts of some of their radio shows. Most RTÉ Radio 1 shows are available for non-live streaming. Streams of topical radio shows, such as Today with Pat Kenny and Liveline, often only cover the previous seven-day period, or a period of about a month for other shows such as Mystery Train. In a recent development an archive of The Tubridy Show going back to September 2006 has been made available. Very few full shows from RTÉ 2fm are available for non-live streaming, and most shows on RTÉ lyric fm and RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta only have the previous episode available. For their textual news, sport, business and entertainment sections; RSS feeds are provided.

Live

Regular live webcasting of RTÉ programmes began on 17 March 2007. All RTÉ News and Current Affairs programmes, such as Prime Time, Questions and Answers as well as programmes like the Saint Patrick's Day Parade, are streamed live, usually with unrestricted access. These are available in Windows Media Player and Real format. Some live content is available in Flash streaming format, including some live GAA matches and RTÉ News Now.

RTÉ News Now an online rolling news service can also be accessed through the site.

Much of the live video content on the site is restricted to the island of Ireland.

RTÉ player

Main article: RTÉ player

In April 2009, RTÉ launched a restricted on-demand television service. Its content is from RTÉ One and RTÉ Two. Its programmes include news, sport, soap operas and other television shows broadcast on RTÉ Television. The RTÉ player was initially restricted to the island of Ireland only. Since January 2010, visitors to the RTÉ player from outside Ireland have been able to access a range or programs which are cleared for international audiences.[11]

Awards

RTÉ.ie has won several awards, including numerous Golden Spider Awards:[12]

Former staff

RTÉ.ie has seen a number of its journalists go on to further careers within RTÉ, elsewhere in the Irish media and further afield.

Former staff and freelance online journalists include:

See also

References

Newer sections


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