Teletext Holidays is reducing it travel advertiser rates as it announces the retention of its analogue TV service for another 12 months.
The deal – a result of talks with Ofcom – follows Teletext’s decision to bring forward the shutdown of its news and information services on analogue to January 2010 and removing all its services, including travel, news and information, from Sky in December.
Managing director Victoria Sanders said the service will be retained until at least September 2011. Teletext Holidays is also available on Freeview channel 101 and teletextholidays.co.uk, thisistravel.co.uk and villarenters.com. “We have got analogue until we want to switch it off. I think another 12 months is viable,” she said.
Sanders pledged to offer travel companies an improved advertising deal for the analogue service as a result of a declining audience, particularly as regions switch off the service. Already the Scottish borders have switched off analogue, while HTV and Granada are due to turn off at the end of the year.
“The price of advertising will reflect the declining audience. I am confident our advertising will remain with us and still see it as a good advertising medium that is profitable,” she said.
The response follows calls by agent advertisers for improved rates to continue using the service. The Co-operative Travel Group distribution director Alistair Rowland has led calls for a better deal and said the group’s homeworkers and agents have started sourcing other advertising routes to replace business lost from failing Teletext revenues.
Rowland said the group’s homeworkers, including Future Travel, need to replace about 500,000 calls a year as a result of a fall in business from traditional channels, such as Teletext’s analogue service.