Rte.ie

Infobox Website
name = RTÉ.ie



caption = Screenshot of RTÉ.ie on 23 June 2008
url = http://www.rte.ie
commercial = Yes
type = Portal
language = English
Irish/Gaeilge
registration = None
owner = Radio Telefís Éireann
author =
launch date = 26 May 1996
current status = Active
revenue =
slogan =The URL RTE.ie is the brand name and home of RTÉ's online activities. The site began publishing on 26 May 1996. It operates on an entirely commercial basis, receiving none of the licence fee which funds much of RTÉ's activity [http://www.rte.ie/about/pdfs/annual_report07_english.pdf#page=27| RTÉ Annual Report (2007) pp27] . The site is funded by advertising and section sponsorship. As of 2007, it is among the top 5000 most visited websites globally, by Alexa rankings [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/rte.ie|Alexa Rankings] and among the top 20 sites in Ireland [http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?cc=IE&ts_mode=country&lang=none| Alexa Profile on Ireland] , with certified impressions of almost 40million per month and more than 1.5million unique users [http://www.rte.ie/about/websitefigures/200705rtefinal.pdf|ABC Electronic International Audit Report (2207)] . The most recent revamp of the website took place on 30 January, 2007 [http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/innovation/2007/1008/1191439501095.html| The Irish Times article] .

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.

ections

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 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 currently its 'News China' Beijing operation.

The current RTÉ.ie news editor is Joe Zefran [http://www.rte.ie/news/features/globalclassroom/index.html] .

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.

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 promotoed 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 particualarly active.

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 broadcasted programming including that produced in-house, comissioned 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

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

Den, TTV

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 1920's and television back to 1961 [http://www.rte.ie/laweb/smil/brc/brc60s_eandrews_tv.smil|Eammon Andrews on New Year's Eve, 1961, the first outside broadcast] .

Audio and video content

Large amounts of 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. This contrasts to the 7-day and often geographically limited availability of BBC content via bbc.co.uk. Occasional other RTÉ-originated content such as "Show Me the Money" is also provided. 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 "The 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 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 now available in Windows Media Player format too.

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

Awards

rte.ie has won several awards, including a number of Golden Spider Awards [http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/Contentforum/Muirne+Laffen+Bio.htm|Categories won by rte.ie] .

ee also

*bbc.co.uk, website of the United Kingdom's BBC.
*CBC.ca the online service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC.

References

External links

* [http://www.rte.ie/news/ RTÉ News]
* [http://www.rte.ie/sport/ RTÉ Sport]
* [http://www.rte.ie/arts/ RTÉ Entertainment]
* [http://www.rte.ie/business/ RTÉ Business]
* [http://www.rte.ie/tv/ RTÉ Television]
* [http://www.rte.ie/radio/ RTÉ Radio]
* [http://www.rte.ie/den/ RTÉ Den]
* [http://www.rte.ie/ttv/ RTÉ TTV]
* [http://www.rte.ie/radio/podcast/ Radio podcasts]
* [http://www.rte.ie/laweb/ RTÉ Libraries and Archives]
* [http://www.rte.ie/live/ RTÉ Live]