Germany
First up is the joint service for ARD and ZDF, Videotext. The German implementation of teletext was separated from the main developments in the UK before Fastext was developed. A complicated system called TOPS is provided instead but rarely implemented.
The text service for local channel HR, branded Hessen Text. Airing on the cultural local 3rd network, the text service compliments the television channel by focusing on news and culture. Full radio listings for HR are also provided.
A new member of the ARD was ORB - Eastern German Broadcasting Brandenburg, since itself replaced after a merger with the (ex-west) Berlin station. The service offers similar pages to that of HR, but the design is fresher, perhaps because of the youth of the channel.
RTL2, now a youth channel but previously general entertainment, takes a different tack to virtually all other services by providing a complete television guide by channel, genre and time for all German-language channels.
The Netherlands (NOS)
NOS Teletekst provides a similar service to NOS TV - a non-biased sustaining service. In this case, none of the ‘Pillars’ (listed above as AVRO, KRO, NCRV, HOS, IKON and RKK, indicating a change in organisations since Intertel lasted visited the subject in 1986) provide a text service - NOS-TT is 24 hours.
Czech Republic (CT1, CT2, TV3, Prima)
The joint service for CT1 and CT2 in the Czech Republic, Teletext CT. Plain compared to its younger rivals…
…Teletext Prima TV (very design conscious) and TV3’s InfoTV3 (oddly avant guarde) services.
Pan-European (Eurosport Italiano)
Still to be seen poking round the edges of the streamed Eurosport services are the Sportext pages in each appropriate language - German, English, Italian. No service in French, despite the channel’s popularity there, due to incompatibilities between the PAL and Secam text services.
More European teletext pages can be found on Teletext Then And Now
