BPN 1741: 40 Years ago Dutch consumers learned about online services

Forty years ago, on September 5, 1978, the long march of online public services in the Netherlands began. The public television 8 o’clock news introduced Dutch viewers to online services for the first time. From the exhibition floor of a consumer electronics fair the television reporter introduced the new digital media, showing  Ceefax-like teletext information, transported by television waves, and a Prestel-like demonstration of viewdata*/videotex**, an interactive system by the telephone. With this historical report of 3:36 minutes, Dutch consumers got a first glimpse of a future with digital media.

The technologies demonstrated used the television screen as a delivery station. Although there were already computers, so-called mainframes and mini-computers, these were used in science, in financial services and in administration departments. And the PC had just been developed, but hadn't really reached the Netherlands yet. The publicity preceding the consumer fair therefore generated television-focused headlines such as 'Extra opportunities coming on television' and 'Besides television for watching, there will also be text television'. 

And as with all new services and products, prophecies about the benefits of these new media were made before and during the fair. Services would be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24/7), with information and teleshopping, banking transactions would be handled the same day and school lessons and university lectures would be available at home. The new services would bring about a change in the daily life pattern of the Netherlands, where at that time no bakery was open on Sunday and no Sunday paper was for sale. 

Start of the long march

After the consumer fair, the long march of digital media was started by the state-owned companies as the public broadcaster NOS and the telecom operator PTT. On 1 April 1980, the NOS introduced the Teletekst, moulded after the UK Ceefax service, but of course in the Dutch language. Teletekst was only available during TV transmission hours. On 7 August 1980, the then State Secretary for Transport, Public Works and Water Management, Mrs Neelie Smit-Kroes, launched the first public 24/7 online service, Viditel. It was the second operational videotext service using UK Prestel software in Europe.

The two services have run different courses. Teletekst has been very successful up to the millennium. As many countries like the UK and Belgium have abandoned the teletext services, Teletekst is still operational in the Netherlands. The PTT service Viditel was less successful and was operational till 1989, when it was replaced by its successor Videotex Netherlands. This service worked with a different organisation and has multiple delivery devices (television, PC and Minitel). The service got a wider usage and had. A milestone was reached in 1994 with 250.000 users and 3 million connected minutes. However, Videotex Netherlands was overwhelmed by Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) on PC and  the introduction of the Internet. Videotex Netherlands was officially closed on January 1, 1997. 

Breakthrough

Consumers got a peek of internet with the launch of consumer services by XS4ALL on May 1, 1993. A real breakthrough came with the opening of The Digital City (De Digitale Stad, DDS) on January 15th 1994.This Amsterdam initiative drew much attention and subscribers to the service. After six weeks the service registered more than 10.000 users. DDS sparked commercial ISP competitor like Euronet*Internet, Planet Internet and World Online. Now after fourty years, the long march for online has reached the milestone of 98 percent of Dutch households online with internet via PC, telephone or tablet. 

*Viewdata was the generic term for interactive services with teletext-like screen presentation over the telephone, which was later replaced by videotex.
** For the demonstration, a link-up was made with the Waterloo computer of the British Post Office (BPO).

BPN 1719: Flemish VTR Teletekst service ceases

The Flemish Radio and Television Organization (VRT), the Flemish/Dutch lingual part of the state sponsored BRT, will stop with the broadcasting of teletext in phases. The number of people using teletext, is decreasing in recent years, in Belgium. Only the subtitling of television programs via teletext will be continued.

VTR Teletekst service was launched on May 8, 1980 by the BRT. In 2005, 800,000 people watched the teletext pages of the VRT daily. In 2009 this figure had decreased to only 599.388 people per day in 2013 the figure was further halved to around 295.381 Flemings per day. In 2014 there were 123.709 unique visitors, according to the annual report of the VRT.

 The private Flemish news channel VTM launched its teletext on February 1, 1996. On October 31, 2014 the service was abolished. The functions were taken over by the website vtm.be and the VTM app. The subtitle function on page 888 remained available.

Turning point

After 35 years of teletext services are on a turning point. With the introduction of internet in the nineties teletext services were integrated in the websites of broadcasting companies. But now the teletext function has been taken over by apps. The BBC teletext service Ceefax is already defunct since 2012. Yet teletext services in France and Germany are still in operation. The popularity, however, of teletext is decreasing by the use of connected televisions, set-up boxes, but especially by consulting tablets and smartphones.

When will Dutch Teletekst stop?

In the Netherlands Teletekst service of the state sponsored broadcast company NOS is still pretty popular. The service was launched on April 1, 1980 with 700 consumers, who could receive teletext on their television. When commercial television was allowed in The Netherlands in 1989 teletext services were part and parcel of their broadcasts, but they never were competition for the NOS Teletekst service. With the introduction of internet the NOS Teletekst service was integrated on the Digital City web side and on the NOS broadcasting company in January 1994. In 2000 2,8 million people used the service daily, but from that point onwards the audience decreased to 2,5 million users of teletext on television. Another 2,5 million people consumed teletext on their computer, mobile or tablet. By 2014 the total figure was down to 3,5 million Teletekst users. Will the NOS Teletekst be still alive by 2020?

BPN 1127 A public broadcast mobile TV platform

The Dutch public broadcast company NOS has launched a series of mobile products, offering news on a mobile, but on various platforms, from mobile telephones to Blackberries and iPhones. All the information available for the broadcast station will be available from traffic jam information, weather report, live video from the Olympic Games and regular news. The information can be called up anywhere: in the train, and in the car. And it is free, except for the data transport of the mobile operator.

Heart of the mobile platform is a specially developed NOS Mobile application, which can be installed on the mobile telephones. Through this application a user gets access to Teletekst, the latest NOS Journal, sports news, weather reports and live television from NOS Journal 24 as well as theme channel Politics 24. For the sports events to which the NOS has the rights, live images can be broadcasted on the mobile platform. During the Olympic Games a user can select one of the six channels and follow live the progress of the games on the mobile. In the mobile platform the broadcast company unites teletext, live television and on-demand video content. Soon programs of other public broadcasting companies become available.

The application has been developed by the broadcasting company in cooperation with weComm and Triple IT. The NOS Mobile application is available for most modern devices and supports the following device platforms: Symbian, Windows Mobile, UIQ, J2ME (Java) and Blackberry. In the future the iPhone and Android will be supported. In total more than 200 devices will be able to receive the Mobile Platform. The usage of the mobile application is for free. However the data line usage has to be paid by a flat fee subscription. The platform can also be used though wifi.

Besides the application there is also a NOS Mobile website available, produced by the Dutch company Momac. The website can serve as an alternative for storing the application on the mobile; however live television channels and teletext services are not included. Especially for people with only a GPRS subscription, a light service without photographs and video has been prepared.

Blog Posting Number: 1127

Tags: mobile television

My museum of content related artefacts (24)

1978: Teletekst

I have also saved two pictures of the television information and subtitling service Teletekst, which started an experimental phase on April 1, 1978. This service was based on the BBC service Ceefax (see fax). Two employees of the Dutch public broadcast service NOS, Jan Buddingh and Cees Veenendaal saw the Ceefax service in 1976 and started lobbying for introduction in the Netherlands.










On April 1, 1978 the Dutch broadcast foundation NOS started the experimental phase of Teletekst to experiment in a small church in Bussum outside broadcast city Hilversum. This period was closed with the launch of Teletekst. Project leader Wim Stokla managed a small department, which took care of the 100 pages, mainly news pages and pages with information on radio and television programs. But the department also took care of undertitling programs. On October 4,5, and 6, 1980 at the start of the new television season, the department took care of undertitling the trilogy Mourning becomes Elektra (Rouw past Elektra), a television play by John van de Rest.Teletekst was in some way a source of confusion for new media novices, so on September 5, 1978 a symposium was held under the title Viewdata and Teletekst. People had to be given an explanation that teletext was a broadcast medium transported by the ether and forwarded by cable, while for videotext information was transported over the telephone line. But by its launch Teletekst was clearly profiled as a broadcast service. The service was a broadcast medium by legal definition with moving pages. The broadcast industry did not any interference by commercial parties. With the advent of commercial broadcast companies in 1989 the teletext system became also in commercial use.

The introduction of Dutch language service Teletekst took some time as television sets needed a particular chipset. For the launch special decoder boxes were sold. However the new television sets after 1980 had a built-in chip set; such television set bore the price tag of 3000 Dutch guilders (roughly less than 1500 euro). These days it is difficult to get a television set without a teletext chip set in the Netherlands.The first Teletekst computer could store 100 pages. At the end of 1981 the computer could hold 200 pages. The Teletekst editorial staff was extended and the NOS Teletekst service had become part and parcel of the broadcasting service, according to Wim Stokla. Eventually the amount of pages grew to 1000 pages. This created space for more information categories. So next to the news and broadcast information pages new services were linked into the services. One of the most popular services before the Internet era was the Schiphol service on departure and arrival times. When in 1989 the commercial broadcasting companies atrted to broadcast, they also started to use the teletext facilities for commercial use such as (sex) advertisement. In 1995 more than 80 per cent of the Dutch households had a television with Teletekst facility.

With the arrival of Internet, Teletekst got the PC as an extra outlet. In 1993 the NOS started its own Teletekst site on internet. In 2000 the service got its own browser, which can be downloaded. In the meantime Internet and mobile phones have become extra outlets for Teletekst. This has an effect on the visits to the Teletekst pages on television, which are going down. By 2004 the viewing figure had gone down to 2,2, million people, a drop of 20 per cent since 2000.

Has Teletekst a future or will it be replaced by interactive teletext? Looking at the growth of setup boxes for digital television in Great Britain, the bell for teletext will toll in the near future. An interactive teletext service on a setup box looks more like an Internet news service and will offer more and better graphical information than the present teletext system. In the Netherlands the change over will take some time and will depend on the change over from analogue broadcast to digital broadcast.

On Tuesday April 1, 2005 the Dutch television information and subtitling service Teletekst existed 25 years. It has been the longest running and most used new media service ever.

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Blog Posting Number: 833

Tags: digital heritage