A personal news digest built on Yle Teksti-TV. Crawls teletext pages via the Yle JSON API, filters out stale content, and sends the collected text to an LLM for a tailored summary — in flowing prose, not bullet points.
The editorial tone, summary style, and reader personalisation are all configurable through the web UI or config files. The default prompt leads with interesting and meaningful stories rather than doom and gloom.
Content license: Yle Teksti-TV content is published under CC BY-SA 3.0. Attribution: © Yle.
- Python 3.10+
- macOS or Linux (Windows: use WSL)
- API keys for Yle (free) and OpenAI (paid)
git clone https://github.com/samikki/better-tekstitv.git
cd better-tekstitvThat's it. The run.sh script handles everything else automatically on first launch:
- Creates a Python virtual environment (
venv/) - Installs all dependencies
- Creates
config.pyfrom the template
| Service | How to get | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Yle API | Register at tunnus.yle.fi/api-avaimet | Free |
| OpenAI | Sign up at platform.openai.com/api-keys | Pay-per-use |
./run.sh --webOpens a local web server at http://127.0.0.1:5834. On first launch, a setup wizard walks you through entering your API keys — no need to edit config files manually.
Features:
- LLM-generated news summary with inline links to original Yle Teksti-TV pages
- Kuuntele / Listen — audio summary via Finnish neural TTS (generated in parallel, non-blocking)
- Päivitä / Refresh — re-fetch and re-summarise
- ⚙ Settings — configure everything: API keys, crawling parameters, LLM prompts, UI language, and personalisation profiles
- Teksti-TV inspired dark design with scanline overlay
./run.shPrints the summary to the terminal and saves it to news_output_summary.txt. You'll need to edit config.py with your API keys first (the script creates it from the template on first run).
./run.sh -pg # CLI
./run.sh --web -pg # WebProduces a calm, age-appropriate summary suitable for primary school children.
All settings live in config.py (gitignored, never committed). Edit through the web settings page (⚙ icon) or directly in the file.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
YLE_APP_ID |
Yle API app ID | — |
YLE_APP_KEY |
Yle API app key | — |
OPENAI_API_KEY |
OpenAI API key | — |
OPENAI_MODEL |
OpenAI model | gpt-5.4 |
ROOT_PAGES |
Page numbers to start crawling from | [100, 102, 130, 160] |
MAX_DEPTH |
Link levels to follow (0 = root only) | 1 |
MAX_AGE_HOURS |
Skip pages older than this | 24 |
REQUEST_DELAY |
Seconds between API requests | 0.15 |
SUMMARY_PERSONA |
System prompt — reporter persona | see template |
SUMMARY_PROMPT |
User prompt ({news_text} placeholder) |
see template |
PG_PERSONA |
System prompt for child-friendly mode | see template |
PG_PROMPT |
User prompt for child-friendly mode | see template |
TASTE_PROFILE_FILE |
Reader taste profile path (or None) |
taste_profile.md |
LOCAL_PROFILE_FILE |
Local focus profile path (or None) |
local_profile.md |
LANGUAGE |
UI language: "fi" or "en" |
"fi" |
PORT |
Web server port | 5834 |
OUTPUT_FILE |
Output path for raw text | news_output.txt |
The web interface supports Finnish (fi, default) and English (en). Change the language in Settings → Language or set LANGUAGE in config.py. All UI labels, buttons, and messages switch accordingly. The news summary language is controlled by the LLM prompts, not this setting.
To add a new language, add a translation dict to i18n.py.
Two optional markdown files sharpen the summary for a specific reader. Both are gitignored.
Describes your intellectual interests, reading style, and what makes content worth your time.
Copy taste_profile.example.md → taste_profile.md and rewrite in your own voice.
Defines geographic relevance (where local news matters), topic weights, and editorial preferences.
Copy local_profile.example.md → local_profile.md and customise.
Without profiles the summary is still useful — just not personalised.
| Page | Section |
|---|---|
| 100 | Etusivu (front page) |
| 102 | Kotimaa (domestic) |
| 130 | Ulkomaat (foreign) |
| 160 | Talous (economy) |
| 190 | News in English |
| 201 | Urheilu (sports) |
| 400 | Sää (weather) |
| 500–519 | Alueuutiset (regional) |
| 891 | Viikkomakasiini (weekly) |
-
Crawl — fetches root pages from the Yle Teksti-TV JSON API, extracts page links, follows them up to
MAX_DEPTHlevels. Index pages are crawled for links but their navigation text is excluded. -
Filter — pages older than
MAX_AGE_HOURSare skipped. Each page (with all its subpages) is fetched once. -
Collect — body text extracted from all subpages (headers stripped). Combined text saved to
news_output.txt. -
Summarise — text sent to OpenAI with persona, prompt, and optional profiles. The LLM writes prose with markdown-style page links that become clickable in the web interface.
-
Audio (web only) — TTS generated in parallel via edge-tts using Finnish neural voices. The page is viewable immediately; audio button activates when ready.
API rate limits (10 req/s, 300/hour) are respected via configurable delay and exponential backoff.
better-tekstitv/
├── server.py # Web interface — routes, pipeline, settings
├── main.py # CLI entry point
├── crawler.py # Recursive page crawler with freshness filtering
├── scraper.py # Yle API client with rate limiting and retries
├── parser.py # Extracts text, links, timestamps from API JSON
├── summarizer.py # OpenAI integration with profile injection
├── tts.py # Text-to-speech via edge-tts
├── i18n.py # UI translations (Finnish, English)
├── templates/
│ ├── index.html # Main news view
│ └── settings.html # Configuration / onboarding page
├── static/ # Generated audio files
├── config.example.py # Config template (committed)
├── taste_profile.example.md # Reader profile template
├── local_profile.example.md # Local focus template
├── run.sh # Setup & launch script
├── requirements.txt # Python dependencies
├── .gitignore
└── README.md
Port already in use:
# Find and kill the process using port 5834
lsof -ti :5834 | xargs killPython not found or too old:
# macOS
brew install python
# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install python3 python3-venv
# Fedora
sudo dnf install python3Missing edge-tts (audio not working):
source venv/bin/activate
pip install edge-ttsSource code provided as-is. Yle Teksti-TV content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 by Yle.