Austext is the former

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...

service based in

Brisbane, Queensland Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

. The service was carried and operated by the

Seven Network The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, and is one of ...

and its affiliates over most of Australia. It carried news, financial information, weather, lottery results, a

TV guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program listings information as well as entertainment and television-related news. The company sold its print magazine division, TV Guide Magazine LLC, in 2008. Corporat ...

and other information, as well as

closed captioning Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio po ...

for programs. The service was freely available for viewing on any television,

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...

or other device with teletext functionality and the ability to access and view Channel Seven, or one of Seven's regional affiliates

Prime A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

, GWN or

Southern Cross Crux () is a constellation of the southern sky that is centred on four bright stars in a cross-shaped asterism commonly known as the Southern Cross. It lies on the southern end of the Milky Way's visible band. The name ''Crux'' is Latin for ...

. Seven first began test Teletext services in 1977 with useful information being transmitted in 1982 in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

and

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

. Austext was shut down in September 2009. Over the years, the service has had various names including SevenTel.

Content

The information available on Austext pages included the latest in news, weather, racing, general interests and a television guide. Also available are contact details for Austext and state deaf associations. The news pages include the latest in business, national news, international news, sport, science and technology, and showbiz. The weather pages include same day forecast capital city temperatures, same day forecast conditions and minimum/maximum temperatures as well as current temperature, humidity,

dew point The dew point is the temperature to which air must be cooled to become saturated with water vapor, assuming constant air pressure and water content. When cooled below the dew point, moisture capacity is reduced and airborne water vapor will ...

, wind speed, wind direction, sunrise and sunset times, and an outlook for the next five days for major centres across Australia which was all supplied by the

Bureau of Meteorology The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the Australian Government responsible for providing weather services to Australia and surrounding areas. It was established in 1906 under the Meteorology Act, and brought together ...

. The racing pages included a national TAB racing index which ceased operation on 4 August 2009. The general interest pages included items such as lottery results, daily horoscopes and a joke of the day. The service also carried a TV guide with listings for the Seven Network in its five metropolitan markets, as well as listings for other networks, both metropolitan and regional, until 2007 when they disappeared. Closed captioning for programs on the

's channels are also included in the Austext system. When produced by the Australian Caption Centre, they were branded as "Supertext". To access closed captions through Austext, viewers enter the navigation code number 801 on an analog television or by pressing the Text, CC, Subtitle or a designated coloured button (depending on make and model) on their digital

set top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of si ...

or television.

Closure

In July 2009 Seven announced that Austext would shut down on 30 September 2009. This was due to claims from the network that the technology had come to the end of its useful service life and is not commercially viable to replace. Seven also noted the wide availability of alternate sources of information now accessible to viewers such as Seven's own websites. Despite the closure, closed captioning services continued to remain available. The onscreen closedown notice read:

References

{{Seven Media Group Seven Network Teletext Mass media in Brisbane 1977 in Australian television 1982 in Australian television 1982 establishments in Australia 2009 disestablishments in Australia

Content

Closure

See also

References