TVNZ to close Teletext Service

The Teletext magazine service operated by Television New Zealand (TVNZ) for nearly 30 years will close on April 2, 2013, tvnz.co reports.

However television captioning – a service available through Teletext and used extensively by the hearing impaired community – will continue unchanged.

The Teletext service began in 1984, originally to help New Zealand’s deaf community get improved access to news and information. Funds raised in the 1981 Telethon helped pay to get it started.

Over the last few years, the information services carried on the Teletext magazine have been overshadowed by the explosion of information available on the internet. As well, TVNZ has been struggling with breakdowns and repairs caused by ageing technology.

TVNZ Chief Executive Kevin Kenrick said, TVNZ has hung on to Teletext as long as it could for the sake of the relatively small number of people who are regular users. The service will continue to run until April 2. In the meantime, users will be offered detail on how to find alternative sources for the information carried on each of the Teletext pages.