End of an era: People share memories as Aertel service to shut down
"Well it was a text information thing on the telly, but if you missed the page you wanted for checking airport arrivals you'd have to sit and wait until it showed up." Picture: Denis Minihane.
Nostalgia has gripped the nation since RTÉ announced yesterday that Aertel, its teletext service, will close next week.
Formally launched in 1987, Teletext will be switched off for good on October 12.
Did we know it was still going? No. Are we heartbroken that it will actually be gone now? Yes.
When you hear the word Aertel every person will automatically think of the number of the page they checked religiously.
News junkies kept up with the latest breaking news, sports fanatics watched scores refresh until the final whistle sounded, cinephiles waited patiently for their cinema listings, and the ever-hopeful among us checked the lotto results praying to see their numbers. Aertel had it all.
While it might seem primitive in comparison to today's world of Google, smartphones, and AI, the teletext service was actually a really valuable service pre-internet.
Not to mention it was an important resource for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. As well as providing up-to-date information, it gave people the option to watch shows with subtitles.
The subtitles were as slow as a snail and often wrong but it was a step in the right direction.
Since 2019, the service has been running digitally but RTÉ decided that it no longer has the resources to keep it going.
To this day, there are people who use Aertel frequently. One woman named Trisha shared that a man she knows will be sad to see it go.
"One of my service users who has dementia love Aertel even though I can Google it in seconds whatever he wants to know, he will happily spend a half hour up and down the pages and that's okay," she wrote on social media.
Trisha was not the only person to take to social media to share thoughts and memories of teletext with Aertel trending at number one on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"Rip Aertel, thanks for all the news articles I plagiarise from you for my English homework," RóisÃn posted.
"As a youngster aged 11, I was the first person to have a story published on Aertel. I got a tshirt for it and it got me interested in journalism. My career went in a different trajectory but I'll always remember the fuzzy feeling of seeing my name in print on Aertel," SÃle wrote.
"The story was a fictional one about stolen apples. Mrs Dromey our neighbour thought it was real and that I swiped apples from her orchard. It took years to convince her I didn't."
SÃle may have strayed off the path to journalism but some well-known faces have revealed the role Aertel played in their own careers.
Newstalk presenter Shane Beatty honed his craft using Aertel.
"I spent most of my childhood on the news pages 103 onwards practicing how to read the news so I'm actually saddened by this," he said.
Journalist and presenter Katie Hannon posted a throwback picture of her time writing stories for the service.
"Here's Eamon Farrell and myself toiling away at the Aertel coalface. Note the cutting-edge technology. Not sure of the exact date but it appears that Stephen Hendry has just beaten Jimmy White in the snooker," she captioned the photo.
Count yourself lucky if your fate wasn't in Aertel's slow-moving hands like Steph.
As if the loss of Aertel wasn't enough to contend with, its imminent demise has unfortunately reminded many of us how old we are.
"Imagine trying to explain Aertel to kids," said Donna.
"Well it was a text information thing on the telly, but if you missed the page you wanted for checking airport arrivals you'd have to sit and wait until it showed up."
If nothing else, Aertel taught us patience.
It has served us well for almost four decades and whether or not you've used it in the last 20 years, it is sad to see it go.
The end of an era but the bright, blocky text will live on in our hearts.
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