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26th Anniversary of the biggest shake up in ITV

Formerly 25th Anniversary (December 2017)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
:-(
A former member
How much did there make off Teletext holidays?
VM
VMPhil
How much did there make off Teletext holidays?

It must have been successful enough considering it's still going and gets advertised on TV, despite Teletext (big T) and teletext (small t) ceasing to exist several years ago.
SC
Si-Co

I never knew that the Filey relay transmitted Tyne Tees. That is an anomaly given that it is south of Scarborough.


That's because it (Hunmanby) never has. It was a Belmont relay originally, then was switched to be an Oliver's
Mount relay a few months before DSO

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=810&pageid=598


Indeed, as the coverage map posted earlier shows the Hunmanby relay doesn't cover Filey (and is only a Freeview Light transmitter in any case). The point Si-Co was making was that the best signal in Filey is from Bilsdale and most aerials point there.


Yes, I was, and also - as Markymark referenced - the fact that the average viewer in Filey was watching TTT from Bilsdale rather than YTV - whereas further north a “pocket of viewers” around Scarborough were watching YTV, despite their neighbours to the north, south and west watching TTT.

I’m also surprised to learn that Oliver’s Mount was switched to being fed ITV/C4 from Belmont, due to the fact the area has more in common geographically and politically with the rest of North Yorkshire, as opposed to Humberside and certainly Lincolnshire!
MA
Markymark
Si-Co posted:

That's because it (Hunmanby) never has. It was a Belmont relay originally, then was switched to be an Oliver's
Mount relay a few months before DSO

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=810&pageid=598


Indeed, as the coverage map posted earlier shows the Hunmanby relay doesn't cover Filey (and is only a Freeview Light transmitter in any case). The point Si-Co was making was that the best signal in Filey is from Bilsdale and most aerials point there.


Yes, I was, and also - as Markymark referenced - the fact that the average viewer in Filey was watching TTT from Bilsdale rather than YTV - whereas further north a “pocket of viewers” around Scarborough were watching YTV, despite their neighbours to the north, south and west watching TTT.

I’m also surprised to learn that Oliver’s Mount was switched to being fed ITV/C4 from Belmont, due to the fact the area has more in common geographically and politically with the rest of North Yorkshire, as opposed to Humberside and certainly Lincolnshire!


It also seems that initially, Hunmanby was indeed fed for ITV/4 from Emley too, see the IBA Map and table

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/emley/emley-625-map.php

Here's a more recent map for Belmont...
http://tx.mb21.co.uk/mapsys/map.php?mapid=86
IS
Inspector Sands
Holidays became Teletext's big draw and presumably their biggest source of income too, though I seem to remember they had a lot of premium rate services at their peak too.

It must have been worth it otherwise they would have closed a lot earlier than they did. Even though they paid more than some TV regions they were dominant when it came to teletext advertising - until 5Text came along it was them or little watches satellite services. And the start up and running costs were less than a TV channel.

It's a shame it all ended so messily, but it really didn't stand a chance in the long run
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 28 January 2019 8:51pm - 2 times in total
JA
james-2001
Then Teletext ended up taking over from 5Text a few years down the line anyway.
IS
Inspector Sands
Then Teletext ended up taking over from 5Text a few years down the line anyway.

Yes and that would have been a very economical expansion, they already had the infrastructure and unlike ITV and C4 they were only having to produce and distribute one version
RU
russty_russ
Seem to recall the main Channel 5 teletext service was run by Sky at first (or the same company who did the teletext services for Sky) before Teletext took it over but don't confuse it with the ancillary service on page 500-599 which I think was run by Intelfax who also did the 600 service on ITV.
IS
Inspector Sands
Seem to recall the main Channel 5 teletext service was run by Sky at first (or the same company who did the teletext services for Sky) before Teletext took it over but don't confuse it with the ancillary service on page 500-599 which I think was run by Intelfax who also did the 600 service on ITV.

Yes though under Sky both services looked the same. The ancillary service came on air the same day as Channel 5, although there was a page or two broadcast prior to launch.

Sky gave up and Teletext were awarded the license
JA
JAS84
Was that due to analogue Sky Text itself closing down?
RI
Riaz
There is a theory that teletext failed to catch on in the US because Americans couldn't figure out how to make money from it, yet at the same time Teletext Ltd. was happy to pay £8.2m a year for the privilege of providing teletext services on ITV and Oracle wasn't too far behind on £6.7m.

Oracle had changed from a technology company in the 1970s to an information provider by the late 1980s as the technology to produce and distribute teletext pages had matured and become increasingly affordable even for a small outfit.

Remember Park Avenue.
WH
Whataday Founding member
Riaz posted:
There is a theory that teletext failed to catch on in the US because Americans couldn't figure out how to make money from it, yet at the same time Teletext Ltd. was happy to pay £8.2m a year for the privilege of providing teletext services on ITV and Oracle wasn't too far behind on £6.7m.


Wasn't most of the revenue earned from holiday commission (even in the Oracle days), selling cheap holidays abroad? That would explain why the UK could make it work and the US couldn't as the travel market is very different over there.

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