Teletext to close mid

  The Teletext information service on analogue and digital television will close across the UK on 16 December.

Limited services including holidays, racing and bookmaking and the subtitles on analogue channels will remain available.

Teletext’s chat and dating TV channels on Freeview will also be unaffected.

Speaking to the BBC in Jersey, Karen Rankin, the Managing Director of Broadcast at Channel TV said the closure was a commercial decision.

“The decision was taken by Teletext UK who run the licence for the whole of the UK to withdraw the service at the end of this year,” said Karen.

She went on to explain that the advertising funded service was no longer commercially viable.

“Because it is a service that is funded entirely by a commercial advertising revenue, what’s been happening of course is that as people have migrated more and more to using the internet, it is no longer a viable business model.

“Channel Television has provided for a very long time local pages into that national service but we are not the licence holders ourselves.

“We are only contracted to provide the local service so that will go at the same time,” said Karen.

If you use the Teletext service to check flights or harbour information you will need to look elsewhere.

If you’ve ever looked up your flight information on page 295, or checked out the TV listings it’s the end of an era.

All of the information that was on the local Teletext pages is available through a number of local websites and subtitles will still remain on programmes through page 888.

“Subtitles will be absolutely unaffected by the withdrawal of the public information service.

“The reason for this is that although it is the same system used to transmit the subtitles, it is not provided by Teletext UK, it is completely different setup.

“The subtitles for national programmes are provided and generated by the ITFC and local subtitles will continue to be provided and transmitted by Channel Television as they are now,” said Karen.

Teletext used to be relied on by mariners to check marine weather, tides and shipping movements.

If you were one of them, the Deputy Harbour Master Captain Peter Moore has warned islanders to keep the Coastguard line clear for emergency use and search and rescue.

He’s reminding people that the Jersey Met website and the Jersey Harbours website between them show commercial shipping arrival and departure times and the weather.

You can find harbour and airport information from their respective websites and the States of Jersey publish flight arrivals and weather information on their.

And you can find information from a number of Jersey travel sources through our dedicated .

Source: BBC News

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Posted by Tech News Team on Dec 15 2009. Filed under Communications, Home Tech, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry