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Austext to end

The teletext service with news, finance information, weather, lottery results, and a TV guide will finish at the end of September.

austextAustext, the teletext service with news, finance information, weather, lottery results, and a TV guide available with the flick of a button, will finish at the end of September.

Operated by the Seven Network, it started providing test Teletext services in 1977, with live services commencing in 1982 in Brisbane and Sydney.

The free service, based in Brisbane, is still provided using the original 1970’s technology, but Seven has cited upgrade expenses, and the availability of the information on the internet, as reason for winding down the service.

In a statement, the service advised: “Seven is aware that Austext has many loyal supporters and we know that many of you will miss the Austext service. We sincerely regret any inconvenience the cessation of this service may cause and we have endeavoured to provide you with as much notice as possible.”

Austext ends on September 30th.

Closed Captioning Services will be unaffected and continue to be available.

39 Responses

  1. Now that four months have nearly passed, I really miss seeing the ‘page 100’ index greet me when tuned to the Seven Network. Seven fed its viewers just plain lies about upgrade costs – this service was being fed automatically from Yahoo7 and the weather bureau, having sacked BTQ 7 staff three years earlier. Long live Austext – RIP for a service just still had tremendous potential given most digital TVs offer fast teletext access.

  2. i have been watching subtitles for many years i always used 120 and 140 and 160 oversea news sports news why cancelled the service but i heard u will get new tech textext channel in fews weeks?? pls keep textext u 7 channel very rich why tight a**e

  3. Ch 7 are idiots to turn off austext and up here in brisbane they said we were getting datacasting on digital tv years ago and when is it comming on air i feel sorry for someone who is deaf but seven didn’t even advartise about it on tv just because a ceo doesn’t whant it and ch 7 shares would go down thats what someone told me on a bus and iv’e spoken to a lot of poeple about it and they didn’t like it getting turned off now it would be analog tv and someone told me ch 7 mitebe the first one turn off analog tv by christmas 09 australia wide i don’t how true that is

  4. i am a big austext i don’t want to see it go and if i was deff i wouldn’t be very happy because i couldn’t see was is said on tv but i use it to see the weather temp is and other things ch7 should hand the equiptment over to the abc or sbs or ch 9 or 10 networks if 7 don’t want to do it anymore and let them do it and ch 7 will loose viewers and should wait until anilog tv switches off

  5. The warning notices regarding the closure of Austextare coming up on my set top box. I can exit from them, but I keep getting the text on the bottom of screen. If I press “Text” on my remote, the screen reverts to the announcement of closing. I can’t get rid of it & there is nothing in my Teac set top box manual to make it dissapear. Can you please help me.

  6. I am absolutely disgusted that they would do this, my husband is hearing impaired how the hell is he supposed to watch TV? there is so many things in life that he misses out on because of his condition and its just hot fair!!! he should be able to enjoy watching TV not have the hassle of trying to work out what is going on… it is bad enough that they employ people who cannot write the subtitles properly now they are going to cut it off, come on! this just is not acceptable…

  7. I am deaf person , I alway watch TV all the channels with Austext all the time because I learn to read English all time make me feel good write communcations with people . all my friends are full deaf . Please do not cancelled austext . I just want to know make sure if after 30th sept what do I watch TV without austext please reply back tell me full information. thank you

  8. I hope that the seven network will continue to make closed captioning available. There are many hearing impaired people who absolutely need this valuable service (accessed via page 801on Austext) to be able to access TV content (since in many cases, they cannot hear what is being said). Without the provision of closed captioning, the network will be in breach of the current disability laws.

  9. What wonderful news! After years of tuning into Seven to check Austext, and then automatically watching Sunrise on Seven, I shall now feel free to watch Channel Nine and others. A whole new TV world opens up as I see no need to stick to Seven any more. In fact, the whole family used Austext, so we will all be tuning in to other channels.
    Of course, Austext was rather weak compared even to similar offerings in other countries, even New Zealand had a better system. Still, if it was the best Seven could do…

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