RTÃÂ.ie is the brand name and home of Irish broadcaster Raidió TeilifÃÂs ÃÂireann (RTÃÂ)'s online activities. The site began publishing on 26 May 1996. According to RTÃÂ, it operates on an entirely commercial basis, receiving none of the licence fee which funds much of RTÃÂ's activity. The site, it says, is funded by advertising and section sponsorship. However, RTàhas had to defend itself from allegations of anti-competitiveness brought about by licence fee support.
, it was among the top 4,000 most visited websites globally, by Alexa rankings, and among the top 10 sites in Ireland with impressions of over 75 million per month and over 4 million unique users. A redesign of the website's home page, news and business sections took place on 13 October 2010.
The RTÃÂ News and Current Affairs independent business unit is branded as RTÃÂ News. The news site was launched in 1998. This section of the site offers access to all the news programmes broadcast by RTÃÂ on radio and on television. The site employs sectioning of news items, poll features, numerous microsites such as for general elections, referendums, and throughout the national budget. It also provides business news which commenced in 2001 as OnBusiness, which is now RTÃÂ Business.
RTÃÂ.ie Sport was founded in August 1999 and 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.
On 10 June 2010, RTÃÂ relaunched their entertainment and RTÃÂ Guide websites. RTÃÂ TEN (The Entertainment Network) was the new name for RTÃÂ's online entertainment section. RTÃÂ TEN planned to be an entertainment news website for the social-media generation, which would connect with users through social media platforms.
Other online activities on the site include the RTÃÂ Television and RTÃÂ Radio sections, while access to themed selections from the RTÃÂ Libraries and Archives is also available.
RTÃÂ Brainstorm is a collaboration between RTÃÂ and Irish universities, which produces written, audio-visual and podcast content to explain ideas to the public. Rather than being commissioned, articles are submitted by members of the academic community for approval.
RTÃÂ.ie has won several Golden Spider Awards, including an Information Excellence Award (in 1999) and Best Media Service Website award (2004).
RTÃÂ.ie has seen a number of its journalists go on to further careers within RTÃÂ, elsewhere in the Irish media and further afield. Former staff and freelance online journalists have included: