Teletext Holidays has promised reduced rates for travel advertisers as it announces the retention of its analogue TV service for a further 12 months. The deal – a result of discussions with Ofcom – follows Teletext’s decision to bring forward the shutdown of its news and information services on analogue from January 2010 and removing all its services, including travel,…
Lower rates promised as Teletext Holidays’ retains analogue for further year
Teletext Holidays has promised reduced rates for travel advertisers as it announces the retention of its analogue TV service for a further 12 months.
The deal – a result of discussions with Ofcom – follows Teletext’s decision to bring forward the shutdown of its news and information services on analogue from 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 see another 12 months as viable,” she said.
But she 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 analogue at the end of the year.
She said: “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 for them.”
The response follows calls by large travel 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 has already said the group’s homeworkers and agents have started sourcing other advertising routes to source business because of failing Teletext revenues.
Rowland has said that the group’s homeworkers, including Future Travel, need to replace around half a million calls a year as a result of a fall off in business from traditional channels such as Teletext’s analogue service.
More information:
* Co-operative Travel agents embrace web as Teletext calls drop off (Travel Weekly, August 11, 2009)
