RTE to close Aertel

winston_1

mike2084 wrote: »

icdg wrote: »

While I’ve no stats, Aertel - the actual original teletext service, **not** the MHEG “Digital Aertel” - is I think the only WST teletext service now going (save perhaps for a couple of the horse racing channels?) in Ireland or the U.K. Furthermore it’s only available on Virgin Media’s analogue service and Sky (the latter only if you connect your box by SCART, not HDMI). Do the maths on how many still use either of these viewing methods as their main source of viewing.

Both At The Races and Racing UK ended their text services last year, I would say Aertel is only one left.

Maybe so, but WST is alive and well in mainland Europe.

Atlantic Dawn

Over 6 years later, Aertel to close on Thursday 12th October...

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/1002/1408582-rte-aertel/

Mickey Mike

Its cast in stone now for sure, it is among many measures which was announced back in 2019, this is one of them. DAB Radio has ceased, Long Wave 252 have ceased and I'm sure they will be more to come.

swoofer

It will be sorely missed by me and maybe a few others. And that's after 40 years. And I was chuffed to get it on an enigma 2 box!! all those years ago.

Atlantic Dawn

I like these Ceefax themed football score mugs, they usually have them available a few minutes after a match finishes...

https://www.nimugco.co.uk/collections/ceefax-mugs

Bob the Seducer

One thing occurred to me which doesn't seem to have come up among all the 'I thought it shut down 20 years ago' comments, nothing I've seen up to this point suggests that the digital version of Aertel will continue beyond next week.

I don't know if RTE are doing it on purpose, but all talk about discontinuing Aertel has used screenshots of the old analogue service rather than the current version that has been around for 10+ years. There hasn't really been any clarification as to whether it's all gone come the 12th or if they are just discontinuing the legacy data which very few have a way of accessing in recent times. In the absence of RTE saying dtt Aertel will continue as normal, I guess we can assume it's all being shut down.

Kintarō Hattori

Unfortunate to hear. My father of 84 will be lost without it. So with Aertel going, DAB gone, LW252 gone..... what do they actually provide? I'm not saying that to have a go at RTE. I genuinely haven't listened to the radio in years since working from home. Nor do I a subscribed TV service (Netflix and YouTube), so haven't watched a channel in a long time.

Mickey Mike

RTE could never have enough money, they were running too many services at high cost and don't forget RTE are paying out very high wages for staff, employees and contractors, they have to slim down big time.

Larbre34

Quite right.

RTÉ2 Television and Lyric FM should be next to close. 2FM and RnaG should be floated off commercially, or failing any interest, closed. RnaG can exist independently with PSO support in the Gaeltacht regions, in any case.

This would leave one TV station and one radio station, with the RTÉ public broadcaster remit for news and factual programming.

If Fís Éireann want to fund and produce film and television drama in Ireland, let them do so directly and sell it to RTÉ, Virgin Media and the streamers, or indeed cinema distributors. RTÉ can sell advertising attached to it to afford to buy it.

Lastly, Montrose should indeed be sold. Back to the Government. It should be an additional campus for St.Vincent's University Hospital and the future needs of the population of Dublin and the East. Wouldn't it have made the perfect Children's Hospital site....

RTÉ should then be moved into 3 or 4 storeys of one of the many brand new office buildings in the City Centre, where it can build a news studio suite and offices for a much smaller staff, who won't need any car parking.

If RTÉ do need larger studio venues, they can lease them from one of the excellent film lots in this Country, just like they do in Ardmore, Bray, for Dancing with the Stars.

Oh and Dancing with the Stars definitely should go after Aertel!

Gerry Wicklow

I've never understood why RTE needs an orchestra. Surely the Arts council or some such would be more appropriate for them.

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121189340#Comment_121189340

The 4 other groups that used to constitute the RTÉ Performing Group, including the National Symphony and Cór na nÓg, have already been moved under the aegis of the National Concert Hall institution.

I don't imagine the concert orchestra will last much longer as an RTÉ entity either.

Schorpio

RTE have previously reported that Aertel costs €700k yearly to operate......which seems extremely high.

The technology itself is rooted in the late 70's. Any raspberry pi would run Aertel with ease. The news stories on the service have largely been lifted directly from the website text. In the few times I have accessed Aertel over the past few year,s I have seen 'click here for more' and similar text which has obviosuly come straight from the website with no oversight.

I'd hazard a guess that there is little-to-no daily human intervention in terms of putting content on the service.

I'm not at all advocating for keeping it - it's past its sell by date in my opinion. But the 'savings' seem to be overstated.

TAFKAlawhec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121197128#Comment_121197128

Aertel covers both the WST version (i.e. the "classic" teletext version that is still available via Sky satellite) as well as the MHEG5 version on Saorview. Dunno if anything is used on Virgin Media in the Republic, and I don't have a Saorsat setup to check if WST is used there right now, there's also no Aertel used alongside RTÉ1 & 2 on the RNI_1 DTT mux in NI.

The main problem is that both the WST & MHEG5 text versions are for all intents and purposes obsolete. MHEG5 has had no development done on it now for quite some time, in the UK it was used for services on both Freeview & Freesat but development here has now moved towards Hbb. There's been no development on WST in about 30 years now IIRC. You could likely run an engine for WST or MHEG5 teletext using a Pi and appropriate software but the crucial bit is that hardly anyone seems to use Aertel now, the cost of €700k a year is definitely inflated, but it would be hard to justify keeping it going if it gave change from a €100 note for the year IMO.

In several continental European countries, WST teletext services are still (reasonably) popular, mainly because the likes of set-top-boxes have DVB-TXT decoders built into them that can be called up and displayed over HDMI connections on to the screen - the Irish (terrestrial) NorDig spec allows for this, but around the time of the Irish DSO/ATO RTÉ broadcast WST & MHEG5 versions of Aertel before quietly dropping the WST version on Saorview some time in 2013/14 IIRC. OTOH the Sky HD & Q receivers didn't have any WST decoding software in them to allow WST Aertel to be displayed over HDMI connections to displays, and a version was never developed to use the Open engine for interactive services on the platform. In the end, the platform largely died off in parallel in that fewer people had direct access to the service, and could get info available on the service near enough as easily elsewhere. Were it not for legislation requiring RTÉ to keep such a service going, I'd say it would have gone years ago.

Mickey Mike

The RTE Aertel service is now completely closed and removed from the RTE1 and RTE2 screen. I wonder what's next for the chop.