Belgian Flemish language public broadcaster VRT has pulled the plug out of its teletekst service on May 31.
VRT has now stopped feeding new content into its teletext service from June 1. At the end of the year, all pages will be removed. VRT Teletekst will continue to be used for subtitling for the hard of hearing on page 888.
Reason for the end of the service, which is called Teletekst in Flanders, is the declining number of users. In 2010 VRT Teletekst drew 576,094 visitors per day, in 2014 the number declined to 123,709. For 2015 no figures are available, but the increased usage of digital reception makes a further decline plausible.
In the Netherlands, public broadcaster NOS said it will continue its teletext broadcasts and there no plans to shut down the service. However, a number of regional public broadcasters including Amsterdam’s AT5 and R-TV Noord-Holland have ceased the text-based service some time ago.
In Germany, all public broadcaster also continue to offer a teletext service.
(Picture courtesy VRT)