Text on Text

In what seemed an inevitbale move, considerin the amount of pages that have a massivly limited appeal, Teletext is doing a fairly large cull of it's pages on channel four. I'll update anything more I find tomorrow.

Heres a quick sum-up of the five page explanation helpfully placed on the prominet page of 304, though it only seems to be linked to on the front page of planet sound. Not that your missing much, the list of "major" changes at the end of the five page explanation(suspicously similar to the last "revamp" explanation) implies there are more not mentioned. The jist is that pages with falling readerships are being removed ahead of the switchover to digital. What disaster would befall us if we switchover to digital with teletext pages with falling readerships? Who dares to think. Theres also the genral comment that less people are using traditional teletext, more using digital. It would pull on the heart strings if Teletext didn't run both. For those who are counting I believe the word revamp is used 4 times and the phrase "expanded and enhanced" twice. Thankfullly it is the latter which befalls excellent music secton planet sound. Others ,however, are not so lucky...(set your keyboards to melo-dramtic and revel in the moment-no-ones looking)

Maybe the most surprising being "teen magazine" Ace. Stupid name aside it seemed fairly popular but teletext rating's apparently say different. I wonder how they're measured? Anyway, the letters page Mega-Zine, again crap name aside, has recieved cult status(check wikipedia if you don't believe me), even if it just seems like a place for bored students to ramble to a giraffe. Upset is a plenty, 10 years old the section-practicly an instution by teletext terms. Still it outlived great rival backchat.

Other big cut sections include It's Your Life, which seemed to be a teletext magazine for housewives, recipes, stories about people with cancer. It's success can be measured by the fact that it was created in the last "revamp" to replace something or other. Ah, now maybe that's the thing-it replaced something I can't remember, and now there disposing of it-very clever, mollify us with a section sounding like a bon jovi song and firghtfully dull, when it goes we don't care and forget why it was created. Though thats probably not true, it's a nice conspiercy. I think it replaced some form of entertainment section by the way.

Actully IYL has kind of been replace itself with a worryingly vauge health, food, etc. So more recipes and cancer abound. Other removals, include Euro Routes, Angling news and rock climbing. Maybe not a massive loss but if it's your thing...well you might be slightly vexed. Another new addition is Night Out, which describes possible nights out around the country. Not new as such. Or in fact at all. Night club and music inofrmation is already avaible on planet sound while thearte, cinema listings and the arts are already aviable elsewhere. But it will mean a clumping together.

Speaking of planet sound, it is to be expanded and moved to page 340. It's one of the more popular sections so thats not a surprise. The only worry is that as it is bascily eating Ace(taking it's pages for the those who don't comprehend such technical lanuage) it will have to be less hardcore(exuse the stupid word). The reason Planet Sound is so popular is because it's probably the best alterntive music magazine around. It's turned me on to some great bands I would never of heard of otherwise. But lets remain optimistic, afterall it's getting extra pages-which has to be good.

Another addition, pencilled in for "later this month" is extra sports and betting content in the 500's. Sounds suspiously like more adverts. This is pretty much what was done to most satillite text services at the end.

PS: I mistakenly said earlier pages with lower
readerships were being cut, in fact pages with lower viewerships were being cut. Thus the creators of teletext answer it's age old question-do you read, watch or use teletext? None it is to be viewed. And you should all do so.