Austext is the former

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n teletext service based in

Brisbane, Queensland Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

. The service was carried and operated by the

Seven Network Seven Network (stylised 7Network, and commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is an Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, ...

and its affiliates over most of Australia. It carried news, financial information, weather, lottery results, a

TV guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

and other information, as well as

closed captioning Closed captioning (CC) is the process of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information, where the viewer is given the choice of whether the text is displayed. Closed cap ...

for programs. The service was freely available for viewing on any television,

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

or other device with teletext functionality and the ability to access and view Channel Seven, or one of Seven's regional affiliates

Prime A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

, GWN or Southern Cross.

History

Seven first began testing the Teletext services in 1979, starting regular service on 4 February 1980 with useful information being transmitted in 1982 in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

and

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

. Austext was shut down in September 2009. TCN, head station of the

Nine Network Nine Network (stylised 9Network, and commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of the five main free-to-air television ...

and ATN's competitor, tried a teletext service in 1977, but as of 1979 it wasn't frequently updated due to the lack of teletext receivers. In its early years, there were two separate services: 7-Text coming out of

ATN ATN is the Sydney Flagship (broadcasting), flagship television station of the Seven Network in Australia. The licence, issued to a company named Amalgamated Television Services, a subsidiary of Fairfax Media, John Fairfax & Sons, was one of the ...

in Sydney with a separate version for HSV-7 in Melbourne, and in Brisbane, SevenTel. In 1988, BTQ-7 became responsible for the national service and was renamed Austext.

Content

The information available on Austext pages included the latest in news, weather, racing, general interests and a television guide. Also available are contact details for Austext and state deaf associations. The news pages included the latest in business, national news, international news, sport, science and technology, and showbiz. The weather pages include same day forecast capital city temperatures, same day forecast conditions and minimum/maximum temperatures as well as current temperature, humidity,

dew point The dew point is the temperature the air needs to be cooled to (at constant pressure) in order to produce a relative humidity of 100%. This temperature depends on the pressure and water content of the air. When the air at a temperature above the ...

, wind speed, wind direction, sunrise and sunset times, and an outlook for the next five days for major centres across Australia which was all supplied by the

Bureau of Meteorology The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the Government of Australia, Australian Government that is responsible for providing Weather forecasting, weather forecasts and Meteorology, meteorological services to Australia a ...

. The racing pages included a national TAB racing index which ceased operation on 4 August 2009. The general interest pages included items such as lottery results, daily horoscopes and a joke of the day. The service also carried a TV guide with listings for the Seven Network in its five metropolitan markets, as well as listings for other networks, both metropolitan and regional, until 2007 when they disappeared. Closed captioning for programs on the

's channels are also included in the Austext system. When produced by the Australian Caption Centre, they were branded as "Supertext". To access closed captions through Austext, viewers enter the navigation code number 801 on an analog television or by pressing the Text, CC, Subtitle or a designated coloured button (depending on make and model) on their digital set top box or television.

Closure

In July 2009 Seven announced that Austext would shut down on 30 September 2009. This was due to claims from the network that the technology had come to the end of its useful service life and is not commercially viable to replace. Seven also noted the wide availability of alternate sources of information now accessible to viewers such as Seven's own websites. Despite the closure, closed captioning services continued to remain available. The onscreen closedown notice read:

References

{{Teletext Seven Network Teletext Mass media in Brisbane Defunct mass media in Australia 1977 in Australian television 1982 in Australian television 1982 establishments in Australia 2009 disestablishments in Australia

History

Content

Closure

See also

References