The Eurovision Song Contest goes online with the potential to access a global audience.
The Eurovision Song Contest website is being managed from a disused RTÉ radio news studio and is a far cry from hearing a jury vote over a crackly telephone line.
This is the official information outlet on the internet for the Eurovision Song Contest.
The website expects to reach thousands of people and demonstrates one possible use for the internet which is used for everything from academic research to fan clubs. The RTÉ website includes information about the artists, lyrics to the songs, and lots of Eurovision trivia.
The designer of the website Luke McManus outlines the information being made available online which includes video and audio content. The Eurovision Song Contest will be broadcast live on the internet from The Point Theatre in Dublin providing access to a global audience.
The team who put the Eurovision website together is responsible for setting up and running rte.ie which they say is the most popular Irish website on the internet. Some RTÉ radio output is already available online along with the news pages from Aertel which are very popular. About half of the visitors to rte.ie come from outside Ireland including many Irish people living abroad.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 12 April 1997. The reporter is Walt Kilroy.
