
Teletext in Europe - fcambus
http://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/media-research/news/teletext-europe
======
sofaofthedamned
I used to work for a company in the UK years ago, who were about the only
manufacturers of teletext equipment such as inserters, etc.

One day we came into the office and the phones were on fire - people were
giving our receptionists dogs abuse and threatening all sorts of repercussions
as we'd apparently 'hacked' their TVs.

It turned out that one of the broadcasters has done something silly with one
of the inserters and reset it to factory defaults, meaning all pages were
replaced with the default 'Welcome to MRG Systems', along with our phone
number.

That was not a fun day...

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sdk77
It's still popular in Holland and accessible via internet as well
([http://nos.nl/teletekst](http://nos.nl/teletekst)).

I've been thinking about a sort of 'internet magazine' broadcast on old analog
TV channels using a mechanism similar to how teletext works: a continuous
stream of pages where more popular pages occur more frequently in the stream
to reduce waiting time. The infrastructure looks very simple. Instead of RF,
what about visible light? It's still possible for users to interact more
closely by including slots with data directed for single users in the stream,
with upstream via mobile data or wifi.

~~~
Scarblac
They also have apps for smartphones and the like, and it's actually extremely
popular!

The quality of the news reporting on Dutch teletext has always been great,
that's one of the key things. No bias, no bullshit, no unrelated stock photos.
Just the facts, and very quickly.

In 2006, the random killing of an 8-year old boy was in the news a lot. When
his murderer was convicted, Teletekst chose to show the news at the top of
page 101, in CAPITALS... and immediately the whole national debate shifted to
that use of capitals, which was obviously outrageously sensationalistic. Use
of capitals for national disasters, OK, but merely this...

~~~
DavideNL
I never really understand why people use it, you can just download the NOS app
which has exactly the same news.

I expect it will be mostly the elderly and such that use it, who don't want to
use smartphones, iPads, etc?

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gutnor
I know a few people that use the teletext almost exclusively instead of
watching TV.

Teletext is a surprisingly good internet substitute for basic information
consumption: you get the top news, the sport result, recipes, meteo, ... Until
recently (smartphone and social apps), that covered 90% of what a lot of
people would do with their internet connection.

~~~
chestnut-tree
" _Teletext is a surprisingly good internet substitute for basic information
consumption_ "

I agree. Teletext feels like it would have been a perfect service for a mobile
phone.

In the UK, the BBC stopped transmission of their teletext service (Ceefax) in
2012. One of the limitations of the service for writers was that it could only
display four paragraphs of text on a single screen. This meant any news or
sport story had to include all the key points in just those four paragraphs.
This forced journalists and writers to be concise and to the point. (It's
actually a great writing exercise to try on any news or sport story, or even
essay)

Now in the digital age we have apps like Yahoo Digest/Summly that give you
concise summaries of the news with large photos (after you've downloaded the
30mb phone app). But teletext did plain, concise text from the start (with
real writers) because of the constraints of the technology. And those
constraints turned out to be a large part of the appeal of teletext.

~~~
Mahn
> This forced journalists and writers to be concise and to the point.

We need to bring teletext back.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Seems like a startup opportunity to me - citizen journalism somewhere between
Twitter and Medium. 4 paragraphs, 1 image per story. I'd sign up.

~~~
oakesm9
This is pretty close
[https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page)

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tomashertus
I used to use it everyday before I moved to the US 4 years ago mainly for
sports results, quick overview of news, weather and stock numbers.

Now it is of course different with apps and smartphones everywhere, but the
simplicity of teletext was amazing. It was so clean information without
distractions, you just went on page number and the information you were
looking for was there. Without ads, quite quickly. I remember checking NHL
results every morning exclusively on teletext.

The simplicity of it is unsurpassed till these days

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I was a fan, back in the 80s. There was something restful about the minute or
two it took for each page to arrive.

And it was fun watching the designers trying to add creativity to blocky 24 x
40 char pages.

~~~
pluma
> designers trying to add creativity to blocky 24 x 40 char pages

As well as the "sexy" art on the dating and phone sex advertising pages.
Apparently any number of pixels is enough pixels to render boobies.

------
hawski
My grandfather used to read it daily when he was visiting my family home. He
was deaf so it was his main use of TV set. Also at the time he didn't have TV
with teletext at his own home. First channel of public television had news
pages and that was what he was reading almost exclusively. He was in his 70s
and didn't use glasses to read, but he was sitting near the screen.

Now I wonder, if he would still be alive, would he use Internet with tablet.
He also used to read newspapers, but teletext was cheaper :)

In Poland public television called teletext TeleGazeta (TeleNewspaper) and use
of the name I believe was reserved only for public TV. Nevertheless most
people I knew called teletext on every channel as TeleGazeta.

Our TV set was sold by the manufacturer without teletext, but it was added by
a seller. Remote didn't had keys dedicated for teletext so few keys had
different function in teletext mode.

~~~
DanBC
> Now I wonder, if he would still be alive, would he use Internet with tablet.
> He also used to read newspapers, but teletext was cheaper :)

He would want to, but I'm not sure if any site would be accessible enough for
him.

It's really annoying that some developers ignore the fact that many people
with disability are early adopters of tech.

------
zwischenzug
I remember following the chess world championship matches on Teletext back in
the day. Not covered by TV or radio, this was the only way to follow it live.
I have 'fond' memories of waiting for the numbers to come round and wondering
whether the latest move had been made.

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ack
I still use teletext pretty much daily. NOS (Netherlands) have a pretty good
web interface as well.

[http://nos.nl/teletekst](http://nos.nl/teletekst)

------
josephlord
Teletext is the only exception to the general rule that TV based information
services (interactive TV) don't get popular adoption. However it has to be
remembered that in its day it was the ONLY live information service people had
access to. Even rolling news was not available for most people.

The reasons interactive TV doesn't usually take off is because at a distance
interaction via a remote control isn't a pleasant experience and the TV is a
shared display whereas the interaction is usually a solitary experience.

Services where you can navigate to video/photo content is different category
and can be popular if the content is good.

Games are another different category that can be a social experience and the
challenge of mastering the controls is part of the experience not a barrier
(in good games anyway).

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timthorn
The BBC used to distribute software for home micros via teletext pages. Not
source to type in, but encoded pages.

~~~
aembleton
Ah yes, you needed a Teletext Decoder:
[http://www.beebmaster.co.uk/Teletext/Teletext.html](http://www.beebmaster.co.uk/Teletext/Teletext.html)

------
riffraff
as far as I know "Televideo" (teletext by the public broadcasting) is still
active in Italy, and useable via web too

[http://www.servizitelevideo.rai.it/televideo/pub/index.jsp](http://www.servizitelevideo.rai.it/televideo/pub/index.jsp)

I join the other commenters in remembering with nostalgia looking up sport
results and weather forecasts.

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jcrei
Sweet sweet nostalgia... Thanks for that trip down memory late. Here's the
current version of the Portuguese national broadcaster's teletext
[http://www.rtp.pt/wportal/teletexto/](http://www.rtp.pt/wportal/teletexto/)

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SlashmanX
I remember spending hours as a child playing Bamboozle on Channel 4 Teletext.
I distinctly recall figuring out how to always get the right answer by trying
all options and seeing which one went to a different page than the others
before the next page (Wrong Answer) actually loaded.

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anthk
[http://www.rtve.es/television/teletexto/](http://www.rtve.es/television/teletexto/)

Spain, from the national public TV.

~~~
RodrigoT
One thing I remember brightly about my childhood was that every time there was
an ETA terrorist attack, the teletext was the only known place to get
"rolling" updates about the details: With radio and TV you are up to the
broadcaster to get more details, and usually only the last update. While with
the teletext you could get both the overall information and the last updates
all in a single place. Nowadays when something like this happens people turn
to Twitter, either from a known source (newspaper) or from eye witnesses.

------
_of
I still use it almost every day. Today it has a web interface
([http://www.svt.se/svttext/web/pages/100.html](http://www.svt.se/svttext/web/pages/100.html)),
which has been interfaced to smartphone apps. Why do I use it? It's a quick
way to get summaries of what is happening at home.

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mmesh
The use of teletext news, even among younger people, was a surprising
discovery from my time living in Sweden a few years ago. I wrote some
observations about it at the time: [http://blog.meshul.am/2013/03/05/let-them-
read-text/](http://blog.meshul.am/2013/03/05/let-them-read-text/)

------
piquadrat
I still check the Swiss teletext
([http://www.teletext.ch/](http://www.teletext.ch/)) multiple times a day. It
remains the fastest way to check if something important happened. Most of my
friends and colleagues make fun of me when I read blocky teletext on my quadHD
phone though :)

------
exDM69
Finland: [http://yle.fi/tekstitv/](http://yle.fi/tekstitv/)

~~~
patrickk
Germany, some of the more popular stations...

ZDF -
[http://module.zdf.de/teletext/master.html](http://module.zdf.de/teletext/master.html)

Das Erste - [http://www.ard-text.de/](http://www.ard-text.de/)

RTL - [http://www.ard-text.de/](http://www.ard-text.de/)

ProSieben - [https://www.sevenonemedia.de/teletext-
viewer](https://www.sevenonemedia.de/teletext-viewer)

Not a bad way to brush up on my German actually ;)

Further reading:

[http://www.giga.de/webapps/ard-hd-live-
stream/specials/telet...](http://www.giga.de/webapps/ard-hd-live-
stream/specials/teletext-online-aufrufen-videotext-von-rtl-zdf-pro7-und-
co.-lesen/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_Germany#Channels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_Germany#Channels)

~~~
brusch64
Austria - ORF(Austrian Broadcast Station) teletext:
[http://teletext.orf.at/](http://teletext.orf.at/)

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seivan
I learned to read by using Text-TV when I was three. Figured how to get
subtitles for Swedish tv and that helped. Then I spent most of my time
browsing all pages. I memorized the pages for the tv time schedule so I could
find out when stuff like Spider-Man and Batman aired. Good times.

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anta40
How big is teletext usage nowadays (if it's still being used)?

Last time I used it, if memory serves well, was probably 1997, in a town in
Indonesia. I was a kid back then, didn't aware of internet, yet.

Boy it was pretty handy for browsing TV listing/news :D

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ajdlinux
I have fond memories of browsing the Austext service when I was younger - was
sad but understandable to see it go in 2009. :(

