Teletext Ltd was the provider of

teletext Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipped television sets. Teletext sends data in the broadcast signal, hidden in the invisible vertical blanking interval area at the to ...

and digital interactive services for ITV,

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

and Channel 5 in the United Kingdom.

Origins

''Teletext Ltd'' started providing

services for ITV and

on 1 January 1993, replacing the previous

ORACLE An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...

service which had lost the franchise.

Ownership

The company was owned by A&N Media, the consumer division of

Daily Mail and General Trust Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is a British multinational media conglomerate, the owner of the '' Daily Mail'' and several other titles. The 4th Viscount Rothermere is the chair and controlling shareholder of the company. The head office ...

's Associated Northcliffe Digital. Its main source of income was from the UK travel website Teletext Holidays. The Chairman of Teletext Ltd was Chris Letcher who acquired a stake in Teletext Holidays from parent company A&N Media. From 1 December 2013, Teletext Holidays moved from advertising holidays from 14 holiday suppliers (including Qwerty Travel, Lowcost Travel Group and Hays Travel) to working with one supplier, Truly Travel.

Closure

Teletext Cars closed on 2 February 2007. On 21 January 2009,

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

reported that "The increasing availability of text based services, both broadcast and online may mean that post 2014 there is no longer clear justification for continued intervention to maintain a public service teletext licence." On 16 July 2009, DMGT announced that due to competition from the Internet, current economic conditions and Ofcom's findings, the service would cease broadcasting most of its services on analogue and digital television, with the exception of the commercial services broadcast on

Freeview Freeview may refer to: *Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia *Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), a ...

channels 101-107 such as Teletext Holidays and the firm's profitable travel websites in January 2010, with the switch off date subsequently brought forward to 14 December 2009 ( Sky Digital) and 15 December 2009 ( analogue TV,

Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Everyone TV (itself owned by all of the four UK Public broadcasting, public service broadcasters, BBC, ...

and Freeview). Teletext's news and information service were removed from: ITV, Channel 4 and Five on analogue TV; ITV and Channel 4 on Sky Digital; ITV, Channel 4 and channel 100 on Freeview; editorial on Teletext Extra on Freeview; editorial on ch 986 on Freesat. The GameCentral section continued online on the Teletext website before joining another DMGT website Metro, renamed Metro Gaming. Despite the withdrawal of news and information content, the service continued to broadcast. On 29 January 2010, the broadcasting regulator

revoked Teletext's licence to broadcast. On 27 May 2010, Ofcom imposed a financial penalty of £225,000 on Teletext Limited for ceasing to provide part of its service whilst its licence was still extant. Ofcom regulations state: "Public service broadcasting licences are offered for a fixed term, requiring the holder to provide the licensed service throughout the licence period. In accepting a licence, the broadcaster takes account of the likely cost of the obligations under the licence, and the value of the benefits associated with the licence, for the duration of the licence period." Teletext's licence was for the licence period 2004 to 2014. The main Teletext service on Freeview was removed from channel 100 on the EPG on 21 June 2010. Teletext Holidays went digital in January 2011. In a deal between

BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetised BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadcas ...

and Inview Technology Ltd, Teletext Extra was relaunched as Radio Times Extra on 31 January 2011, with editorial content from the ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in September 1923 by John Reith, then general manage ...

'' instead of Teletext Ltd. Teletext formally closed down on 28 June 2012, but Teletext Holidays finally closed on 1 October 2012.

Other teletext services

In spite of its name, the ''"Teletext"''-branded service was neither the first nor the only teletext service in the UK. The

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

(one of the original developers of teletext) launched its

Ceefax Ceefax () was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST (11:32 PM BST) on 23 October ...

teletext service in 1974, the same year that ''Teletext's'' predecessor,

, also appeared. Although ORACLE closed at the end of 1992 (when Teletext Ltd outbid it for the franchise), Ceefax continued to run on BBC analogue channels until the cessation of analogue signals in October 2012. FourText, originally called 4-Tel, was first run in conjunction with ORACLE, as an auxiliary teletext provider for Channel 4 from 1982. 4-Tel occupied pages 410–469 within ORACLE's page space. When ORACLE lost its licence and was replaced by Teletext Ltd in 1993, 4-Tel moved to its own page space on pages 300–399 (effectively its own magazine). Channel 4 enlisted Intelfax to run the service. In 2002, 4-Tel was renamed FourText. In addition, FourText also launched on digital television. In 2003, Channel 4 ended their contract with Intelfax and contracted out the service to Teletext Ltd. The new service was named Teletext on 4 and operated on pages 400–499 (which replaced pages 300-399 as Channel 4's page space). However, on 30 October 2008, Teletext on 4 on Channel 104 closed and replaced in December 2008 by 1-2-1 Dating. using Teletext on 4's old channel number.

References

External links