Welcome, teletext fanatics! I'll just leave this here...

Monday 1 October 2007

The decline of Teletext continues

Teletext will come a small step closer to its inevitable demise at the end of the year, with Ceefax finishing their horse racing coverage: Beeb pulls plug on racing coverage article.

Some people aren't too happy about this:
My elderly father always uses the Ceefax service for his horse racing results. He has never even used a PC let alone accessed a webpage.

I suppose in the BBC's eyes he doesn't fit into a trendy enough demographic!

- Steve R, London, UK
Others ask why the medium cannot live alongside interactive TV. Well, the hope is that interactive TV will replace the traditional service, providing a more in-depth version. Traditionalists bemoan the fall of the pixel format which has been with the nation for so long just being phased out like that.

Walking into a betting shop used to be an experience - the plethora of television screens, most showing teletext pages, people staring at them, betting slip in hand. This will be one enduring image of British working life that will die out - the teletext part, at least.

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