We were wrong. news teletext is still alive. The shape has been better, but the angular graphics and the established page numbers are themselves the same. But how is it going with the jubilee? And who is actually responsible for teletext? I will ask that question at the morning meeting. There is silence around the rectangular table. Not the silence that arises from ignorance, but as in activity of thought. Then come the proposals. – It must be us in the news department. – Maybe you have to go all the way to the top. The Director of Broadcasting. – Do we still have teletext? – What is Teletext? The last is said with a twinkle in his eye. This is not some digging “true crime” case, but the questions must be answered. So grab the fictional remote control and slide your way down the 40-year-long story. Fortunately, it does not take as long to read the case. 02 February 1983. It is now 40 years since teletext revolutionized news broadcasting. You may think it sounds pompous and excessive, but remember this: It was the first medium that did not depend on fixed times for broadcast and publication, as was the case with radio, television and newspapers. And nothing was faster. Our everyday life is completely different now, but then there was no one else who could deliver completely fresh news. In the newspaper you get yesterday’s news, on TV you get the day’s biggest news in the evening, on the radio what happened half an hour ago. On teletext, it only takes minutes before you are updated. This small but effective “pitch” is not news’s, but what the BBC used to refer to its service Ceefax. Which again was the precursor to our version of teletext. A couple of years before the Norwegian launch came this taster: Remember that you need additional equipment for the TV. Incidentally, Ceefax and the BBC entered the years in 2012. They only kept it going for 38 years. Weak. When the Storting decided that news should invest in teletext in April 1982, it was such a big event that the editor of Arbeiderbladet was brought in to lead the work. Olav Nilssen brought four people with him, and together they formed the first teletext editorial team. But who is in charge today After the droning at our morning meeting, it was quickly agreed that the news department is in charge. Nevertheless, and true to the task, I choose to go to the source myself to find the answer. On teletext page 391, it says who is responsible. It was another toll trip. Neither Thor Gjermund Eriksen nor Alexandra Beverfjord work at news today. And I’m reasonably sure that they don’t manage a bit of news text-TV in addition to being managing director of Norsk Tipping and editor-in-chief of Dagbladet. Although the teletext page on editorial responsibility was out of date, it gave me a clue as to where I should ask the questions. I try to be a program editor in the News Division, Kathrine Hammerstad. It turns out that she has a good overview. – I actually think the right one for you here is Audun Aas. He knows more about both how it works and the plans going forward. I just have to pack the digital briefcase and move on. Large user base and later cult status notwithstanding. It hasn’t been a joy run all the way. In the beginning, it was only possible to use teletext for a few hours in the evening, from children’s TV to the end of the broadcast before midnight. The short opening hours upset users, but it’s still better than when a typo made people sick. It was only a small typing error, but a typing error in the mussel warning in 1994 created a disturbance in the sea for many people’s dinner plans. Or perhaps it was the plans after dinner that were postponed. You’ve probably heard of “the dark web”, but do you remember the dark side of teletext? It did not have the same prominence at news, but there were others who offered themselves. New platform Teletext Ltd in England was behind some of the first sex and dating sites on text TV. Received massive criticism TVNorge had to withdraw its sex ads. – Responsibility for teletext currently lies with the news.no team because most of the content is automatically retrieved from the same systems that also deliver content to our websites. Finally presented to the right person. Audun Aas, product development manager for news.no, has the answers I was looking for. But if the whole thing is almost exclusively an automated process, then surely news text-TV can live forever? Or maybe not forever, but it can live a long time? – Yes, it is discussed at regular intervals. As of now, there is no agreed plan to shut it down, but it is no secret that it is becoming increasingly difficult to make this old technology work with our other systems that are constantly being modernized. It sounds like a natural progression. Ten years ago, news’s mobile offer was as widely used as teletext. At its peak, in the peak year of 2005, almost 1.5 million Norwegians used teletext every single day. It’s getting to be a while since the peak years now. Ten years ago, we assumed that teletext would soon be part of news’s history. But then there is this thing with supply and demand. Is there any life here? We are sending a request to news’s number cruncher and user habits encyclopedia Kristian Tolonen. The graph he sends in return is surprising: The six percent amount to 280,000 daily users. Not only is it high, but the figure has also been stable since 2017. In comparison, Twitter has approx. 120,000 Norwegian users every day. So who is hiding behind the numbers? The age segment from 65 years and upwards is clearly the leader in the field, and it also emerges that it is in Northern Norway that they are most enthusiastic about the remote control. So if you are 70 years old and live in Bardufoss. Or is your grandmother 68 years old and lives in a small yellow house in Hammerfest? Yes, then there is a good chance that she is one of Teletext’s regular users. Now it is worth noting that it is difficult to measure the use of teletext. At least compared to how we measure and find figures on the use of the internet and TV. But let’s not spoil a good story with too many facts. A little peek into the fortune-telling ball Is it permissible to hope for a 50th birthday? Or are we now in the race? In any case, I dare not predict the gross failure we did ten years ago. There is little doubt that our teletext offer will not improve, but it will be exciting to see how long it lasts. A small bonus for those of you who read the whole thing. It is still possible to enjoy teletext here: Press me – I am 40 years old Page 391, Editor’s responsibility for news teletext TV, is still not updated. But maybe I can figure out how to update that page before the next anniversary.
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