Aertel 30 Years Old Today

RTÉ teletext service is now 30 Years old. The service came available on 22 June 1987 providing news, sport, entertainment and TV listings. Most recently the service was in the news as RTÉ have asked for the service to be dropped. Under the Broadcasting Act 2009 RTÉ are required by law to retain the service.

Aertel was the RTÉ brand for its teletext service. It was created in the 1970s in England by John Adams, who was working at Philips as their Lead Designer for VDUs.

The service was available to TV with a VBI decoder. Simple text a geometric images were able to be broadcast along with the TV channel. BBC's ceefax was launched in 1974 and closed in 2012. The service was replaced on Digital TV by the BBC's Red Button.

RTÉ continue to provide an updated Aertel on soarview, which is also available online at www.rte.ie/aertel

Page 180 continues to provide now and next for the main Irish and UK channels. http://www.rte.ie/aertel//desktopxhtml/180-1.html.

More info soon