RTÉ IS SEEKING to award a contract to digitise and archive over 20,000 audio tapes created over a 20-year span.

It said that these recordings were created between 1988 and 2008, and contain a mixture of studio and field recordings that were originally produced for radio programming.

The tapes RTÉ has on file, however, do vary in quality and duration.

They want the successful contractor to collect the tapes that will be bar-coded and boxed in RTÉ in Donnybrook.

RTÉ shows continue to dominate the airwaves, with Morning Ireland – created in 1984 – still the most listened-to show in the country today.

Other popular shows during the time period being archived is the News at One, Liveline, the Gay Byrne Show which ran until 1998 and the Gerry Ryan Show, which was broadcast until his death in 2010.

During the digitisation process, each tape must be converted to a WAV file. 

If some tapes cannot be restored due to quality, restoration is not part of the scope of the process. However, RTÉ wants such instances to be reported.

Once this process is completed, these files must then be returned to RTÉ.

For those wishing to win the contract, RTÉ wants detailed proposals and costs for the collection, safe transportation and return of the tapes, the collection and shipping of the collection its entirety, the return of the collection in digital format and insurance for the collection.