Teletext to focus on travel-related offerings

Teletext has decided to focus completely on online travel services. The company is to switch off its news and information service, available on analogue and digital television, in January 2010.

The move comes following a comprehensive review of the business by the senior management of the Daily Mail and General Trust PLC (DMGT)-owned service. The decision will see up to 70 people made redundant.

Teletext, owned by the Daily Mail's parent company, Daily Mail & General Trust, is available on ITV, Channel 4, Channel Five and some Sky and Freeview channels.

DMGT said Teletext Holidays, which is broadcast on Freeview, would continue, as would the increasingly profitable Teletext web operation, which includes teletextholidays.co.uk, thisistravel.co.uk and villarenters.co.uk. 

“The company will focus on these assets. The removal of loss-making TV activities will allow investment in these businesses to accelerate,” said Mike Stewart, the group managing director at Teletext.

The volume of commercial activity generated by the TV service has fallen sharply, with revenue declining by 50% since 2003. As a result Teletext's television services have been loss making for the last three years. The company blamed the decline in the financial performance of the television services on the government's allocation of broadcast capacity for the public teletext service in the 1996 Broadcasting Act.