RTÉ One is an Irish free-to-air flagship television service owned and operated by RTÉ. It is the most-popular and most-watched television channel in the country and was launched as Telefís Éireann on 31 December 1961, it was renamed RTÉ in 1966, and it was renamed as RTÉ 1 upon the launch of RTÉ2 in 1978. It is funded partly by the government's licence fee; the remainder of the funding is provided by commercial advertising. Because RTÉ is funded partly by the licence fee it shows considerably fewer advertisements than most other channels available in Ireland and Northern Ireland.