videotex, prestel and teletext: the economics and politics of some electronic publishing media

The term ‘Videotex’ has recently

been adopted internationally to

describe some of the simple, IOW-

cost electronic means of

‘publishing’ text and graphics. The

technology is expected to become

widely available in the next five

years. The author reviews the key

technical and managerial issues

and options involved in Videotex

(otherwise known as ‘viewdata’)

and in a wider range of text-

dissemination systems. He offers a

tentative assessment of the

economic significance of these new

media. Public policy implications

are discussed : these include

questions relating to regulation,

editorial control, advertising

standards, competition, and other

issues. The distinctive industry

structure in the USA presents special difficulties and

opportunities.

The author is Managing Director of

Communications Studies and

Planning Ltd. 21 Great Titchfield

Street, London Wl P 7FD, UK.

This article incorporates some ideas previously presented at the International Telecommunications Exposition, Atlanta, Georgia, in November 1977 and at the

continued on page 38

Videotex, Prestel and Teletext

The economics and politics of some electronic publishing media

Michael Tyler

New telecommunications services which can deliver textual information and simple graphics at low cost to a wide range of users (ie services which can support totally electronic forms of ‘publishing’) are emerging. They have reached the stage of a large-scale public trial in the UK and will soon do so in several other countries, including Canada and France. It is, therefore, timely to take stock of these developments - the nature of the services that can be offered and the technologies that support them, the evidence so far available about their commercial potential, and the policy problems and choices that can be foreseen.

The focus in this article is on systems that involve television receivers as low-cost display terminals converting a digital signal into text and graphics on the screen by means of a local character generator. In the two system concepts that are best known at present, information is transmitted either in the ‘blanking period’ of the broadcast television signal (Teletext) or via the telephone system (Videotex).’

Other forms of electronic publishing for the genera1 user must also be considered as close potential competitors. One is based on the use of ‘frame grabbing’ to display text and graphics selected by the user from a constant stream of ‘frames’ carried by a wideband cable television channel. Yet another competitor, often overlooked in this context, is the use of information prerecorded on storage media such as video discs.

‘Electronic publishing’ for the specialist user is not new, of course: systems such as LEXIS, MEDLINE, or the Information Bank at the New York Times are well established. What remains in question is the next step - to a cheap, easily understood ‘Mode1 T’ version of electronic publishing suitable for a much wider market among unsophisticated users.

The key physical and organizational elements of a man-market Videotex or Teletext system are illustrated in Figure 1. The

0308-5961/79/010037-15 $02.00 0 1979 IPC Business Press 37


Physical elements Orgon~zal~onol elements _---------

(b-oticast sIgnal, telephone circuit. TV,

i____________J

pizq 4-1

Figure 1. Key system elements for a Videotex or Teletext service.

importance and difficulty of some of the more mundane organizational elements (billing, for example) should not be underestimated. The commercial manager of an electronic publishing system must keep track of many transactions with editors/ information providers as well as end-users. The dotted line indicates the scope of the British Post-Office’s operation of Prestel, the first Videotex service to operate commercially. In addition, the Post Office provides advisory editorial support to information providers and itself makes many policy decisions that would be matters for a public regulatory body in the USA and Canada.

Services and technologies - the main options

continued from page 37

The services considered here can usefully be divided into five types according to the kinds of physical systems used to support them. A classification based on technology is legitimate, because the technical system used dictates not only the economic attributes of the service, but also many other features which influence the utility and acceptability of the service to users. The four kinds of all-electronic

Sixth Annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, Airlie. Virginia, in

publishing systems currently under active development are:

May 1978. Mr Tyler is indebted 6 Roger Pye. Richard Clark, Charles Jonscher, and

0 Narrowband interactive systems: Videotex, sometimes known as

Raymond Panko for many ideas and ‘Wired Teletext’, using the telephone system or similar networks research results used in the preparation of to distribute data, in response to a user’s request, at relatively this article. slow speeds (typically not more than 2400 bits/s, although more

raoid transmission rates will become possible as data networks ’ Terminology here is confusing - and not without political connotations. It needs clarification. The telephone-oriented systems originated in the UK, where they are known generally as ‘viewdata’. In April 1978. the British Post Office announced that its viewdata system

be’come widely accessible). This is- the ‘viewdata’ concept originated by Post Office Telecommunications in the UK and now marketed under the trade name ‘Prestel’. The interaction permits extension of the service, for example, to include simple message services, purchasing and other transactions.

would be known by the registered name 0 Narrowband Broadcast Teletext, often referred to simply as ‘Prestel’. Internationally, however, ‘Videotex’ is, following a recommendation

‘Teletext’, in which textual and graphic information is inserted by CCIlT, increasingly used as the generic into the redundant intervals in broadcast television signals, term for such systems. The broadcast systems are known as ‘Teletext’, although

creating a stream of digitally coded frames of information from

this term is often used generally to which the user can make his or her selection. Ceefax and Oracle

include Videotex. in the UK are examples of broadcast Teletext. This is inherently a

38 TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY March 1979

0 01 005 01 05 IO 5 IOM

Data transmlsslan rate, blts/s

Figure 2. Relationship between

information base size, data

transmission rate and maximum

access time per page for one-way

systems.

Curves shown are for a 600 character page and 8 bits per character coding.

16 ,

t

\

\

I A

14 I

I I I I

0 600 1200 I800 2400

Line tmnsmlsstan rate, bits / s

Figure 3. Relationship between page

transmission time, transmission rate,

display format and signalling system

for Videotex systems.

Curve A: 40 characters x 24 rows, start/stop asynchronous signalling Curve 8: 40 characters x 24 rows, synchronous transmission Curve C: 32 characters x 21 rows, start/stop asynchronous signalling Curve D: 32 characters x 21 rows, synchronous transmission Eight bits per character code word assumed; for 7 bits per character, reduce transmission time by 10% (start/stop asynchronous signalling) or 12.5% (synchronous signalling).

’ Note that Figure 2 is inherently conservative in that it does not take account of the fact that more popular pages can be repeated several times during a complete transmission cycle, ‘interleaved’ with other frames, so that the average response time for any given database size, if weighted by frequency of frame use, is improved.

0

0


‘one-way’ service, in which the user can select information frames, but does not have a general two-way communication capability at his/her disposal. Wideband ‘broadcast’ or cabled Teletext, employing the same principles as Ceefax and Oracle, but achieving much greater capacity by allocating all, or most, of a complete video channel to transmitting the alphanumeric or graphic characters. In principle an off-air broadcast channel could be used in this way, but, at least initially, use of cable television is more likely. Data flow in such systems can be so rapid that, given a fairly ‘intelligent’ terminal, they can provide an information retrieval service comparable in scope and response time to that offered by a small Videotex database, though obviously lacking its potential for interactive services such as message sending.

Cable TV information systems, which are not true Teletext systems, distribute information as analogue television frames and not as character-coded data, but provide very similar services and so must also be considered as competitors. One such system, the ‘Qube system’, has already been launched and is being operated by Warner Communications in Columbus, Ohio. Wideband two-way teletext. In principle, full wideband two-way operation would be desirable. It can be achieved on sophisticated switched cable television networks such as that used for the TICCIT experiment in Reston, Virginia; but costs are likely to remain prohibitively high for many years to come.

It is interesting to note a further possibility that has so far attracted little attention: medium-bandwidth broadcast Teletext. An attractive Teletext service could be developed on that basis, using a dedicated broadcast channel with substantially less bandwidth than a full television channel, and might be offered in conjunction with existing television or radio broadcasting arrangements. With a bandwidth of, say, 1 MHz, such a system could offer faster response time and/or a larger database than the conventional broadcast Teletext systems.

The principles that apply can best be illustrated by a tradeoff diagram (Figure 2), which shows the constraints inherent in one-way operation.2 If a one-way system is to allow rapid access to a large database, a wide bandwidth channel must be provided. This bandwidth may be contrasted with the different tradeoffs which characterize the relationships between the transmission parameters in a two-way system.3 Typical transmission parameters for the telephone-based two-way systems are shown in Figure 3. The response times given are maxima, since most information pages will contain a good deal of empty space. Indeed, this is important for good layout and legibility. Consequently, many pages will be delivered to the user a couple of seconds faster than is suggested in Figure 3.

Key features of four existing systems are summarized in Table 1. One further point is important from a commercial and policy perspective: while two-way systems can easily incorporate automatic terminal identification and user passwords, and use these in a computer-based billing system, it is difficult to bill users directly for a one-way Teletext service. Billing based on usage is impossible unless sets are fitted with a ‘scrambler’ device similar to those currently used in some pay-TV systems.

Videotex systems are inherently less limited - though generally

TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY March 1979 39


Table 1. Comparison of four ‘electronic publishing’ systems.

Teletext: Ceefax/Oracle

Channel

Access time per page

Broadcast Cable One-way One-way

26 s maxa (up to 192 s if 800 pages provided) with no interleaving

1-2s

Information per page (characters)

960 768

Character set Upper and lower case Graphic elements

Upper case

Display quality Colour Characters and limited graphics

Information base size

(pages)

100 typical; 800 maximum, but provision of more than 400 not usual

Teletext: Reuters’ Monitor

Black and white No graphics

Videotex:UK Post Office’s ‘Prestel’

Telephone circuit Two-way

11s maxa

960

Upper and lower case Graphic elements

Colour Characters and limited graphics

100 000 initially

(ultimate capacity unlimited)

Mitre TICCIT

Coaxial TV cable Two-way

1-2 s

Limited by screen resolution only

Unlimited

Colour Analogue (characters and full graphics)

-

Ultimate capacity unlimited

a These figures denote the maximum ;ime for a page filled with 960 characters.

more costly - than one-way systems. Their evolutionary potential as a vehicle for the introduction of services and facilities more advanced

In practice, pages typically have 400 characters or less. This reduces response than the basic ‘information retrieval tree’ is particularly interesting. time for the Prestel system to about 7 s or Oonortunities exist in at least three directions: advanced information less.

1 .

retrieval; message services and ‘transaction’ services; and ‘telesoftware’.

Information retrieval methods In existing Videotex systems the database is organized in a ‘tree’ structure. If the user knows the page number of the information required, it can be accessed directly. The alternative is to start from the index page, and use the push-button key pad to input selection digits in response to a ‘menu’ of defined choices which are presented sequentially, in order to move in a series of steps through the tree structure from, say, ‘travel’ to ‘package holidays’ to ‘package holidays in Spain’, until arriving at the page the user requires. Although this method, illustrated in Figure 4, is slower, it provides a very easy way of browsing through the database in search of information, and presents no problems for untrained users.

Many observers, however, feel that these two methods of retrieval will be insufficient, arguing that stepping through the tree structure is a tedious and ‘unnatural’ way of seeking information. Some evidence

3 For example, if the system is to allow access to an information base of 10 000

on this issue i_ presented below. If the critics are right, and service ‘S 1

pages of about 600 characters each, then providers decide to offer more sophisticated retrieval methods such as to achieve a maximum delav time of 10 s kevword searches - probably at higher cost - this will be an would require a channel transmission rate of about 5 000 000 bits/s in a one-way

important argument for interactive systems, since even in the era of

system, as against 600 bits/s in a two ‘intelligent terminals’ most of the processing required can probably be

way system. (The term ‘page’ is used to best done in a central computer. describe a set of text characters and graphic elements and blank spaces formatted to occupy the entire television

Integration with message and transaction services screen). Although Videotex is still thought of by some primarily as an



I. News 2. spcfi 3. Travel 4. Education

Key 3 I Air schedules _ 2. Rxlschedules

Key I

AN schedules

I West Europe 2. East Europe 3 North Amerim

Key I I fMgNJm

Key 2 I Ports 2. Lyon 3 Comes

Dole Dep. Arr. Key I ---

--- ---

‘CCJ

Figure 4. An example of the use of a information-distribution medium, its interactive nature makes it ‘tree-search’ procedure: locating particularly suitable for applications requiring two-way communi- information on scheduled flight times cation. These extensions form a continuum in terms of the ‘selectivity’ to Paris. involved, ranging from the sending of text messages between

individuals, through the use of electronic publishing on a small scale by ‘naive’ users (eg the ‘club newsletter’ application), to the conventional one-to-many form of electronic publishing. A related service concept that can appropriately be introduced here is the ‘closed user group’ which involves designating a particular section of the database to be used only by those provided with a special access code. The dissemination of price changes, special offers and other information within a supermarket chain might be an attractive application for the ‘closed user group’ concept.

Related to the message services concept is the idea of ‘transaction services’. This is essentially a special case of a message service in which only a few single preceded messages can be sent. An important example is the ‘action frame’ feature the British Post Office expects to add to its Prestel service. A user will, for instance, be able to read advertising and, by entering a suitable code, ask for further information to be mailed, or even make a purchase (negotiations with credit card companies about the purchase aspect are well advanced).

‘Telesoftware’

Videotex lends itself to yet another role, in the context of the ‘very



4 For a detailed discussion, see J. Hedger, ‘Home computing via Teletext’, Wireless World. November 1978. 5 Roger Pve. ‘Information retrieval services’, Telecommunications Policy, Vol 2. No 1, 1978, pp 73-78. *The IBA is a UK public authority with a monopoly on the provision of physical facilities for networking and transmission for the private television companies. It is also the public regulatory body for the private sector of television broadcasting. 7 Half of the residential sample will receive the Prestel service without any additional terminal charge: they will be households already renting television sets and will continue to pay their existing rental fee. The other half will pay f 12 to f 15 (depending on the type of receiver) for the first six months and f 18 subsequently. Usage-related charges will be zero for the first two months for each group. 8 The Post Office committed itself to spending f23 million (about $US42 million) in 1978 and 1979 to launch a public service, with ten Prestel centres. 9 Other notable examples include the Consumer’s Association with its Which? reports, and the Financial Times newspaper.

intelligent terminal’ or communicating personal computer - a development that is already of practical importance in the USA. The Videotex system can serve as a very large ‘reservoir’ or library of software (programs for games, for example, or for data processing for small business) and can distribute this software for use by the personal computer just as it distributes text and graphcis for direct use by the human subscriber to the service.4

Videotex and Teletext in practice: experience and issues

Activity in the field of Videotex and Teletext has reached the point at which a full catalogue of systems and trials would be significantly too long for a journal article. Instead, the scope of current activity is briefly sketched to update Roger Pye’s earlier survey in Tele- communications Policy’s column ‘Focus on Europe’,s and to illustrate the economics of the service and some major management and policy issues that have been raised by recent experience.

A sketch of events in the UK may be useful, since the practical application of Videotex and Teletext is considerably more advanced in the UK than elsewhere.

The ‘broadcast Teletext’ idea was developed by the British Broadcasting Corporation under the name ‘Ceefax’ and by the Independent Broadcasting Authority6 under the name ‘Oracle’. Broadcast Teletext is fast becoming a consumer product: industry estimates suggest that about 5000 Teletext-equipped television sets are now in use in the UK, but BREMA - the industry association for the UK set manufacturers - has predicted that there will be 12 000 such sets in use by the end of 1978 and 250 000 by the end of 1979.

Signals are broadcast on a regular basis, with the database constantly being updated. Topics covered include news, weather forecasts, consumer information such as food prices, sports events and results, road traffic conditions, and cooking. Perhaps significantly, the IBA’s parallel service, Oracle, was ‘off the air’ from October 1977 to September 1978 owing to a union/management dispute over policies towards the staffing of the new activity.

The British Post Office’s viewdata or Videotex system (‘Prestel’) is operating on a pilot scale and test service has begun which will run until September 1979. Fifteen hundred specially equipped television sets are expected to be in use early this year. Of these, 850 are to be in a sample of homes in London, Birmingham and Norwich.’ Three hundred are to be in a random sample of businesses and 350 are to be in businesses selected for their special relevance to the market study.

The Post Office is not, however, waiting for the results of the test service before making its decision to press ahead with a full public viewdata service: that decision was announced on 28 February 1978.’

Perhaps the most striking feature of Prestel is the successful effort, mounted at an early stage in the development of the service, to involve a wide variety of ‘information provider’ organizations in the establishment of the database. So far, over 75 information providers have agreed to ‘publish’ their information via Prestel. They range from the weekly Exchange and Mart classified advertising magazine to the government’s Central Office of Information.9 Even for the initial test service, the information providers are committed to offering over 100 000 frames of information, although only a fraction of that total is available at present.


V - Videotex system B - Broadcast teletext


Table 2. List of main Videotaxlieletext initiatives in Europa outside the UK, as of October 1978.

Country System Type Transmission

France

name X

Tictac V

France Antiopel V Titan

FGR Bildschirmtext V

FGR Videotext B

FGR Bildschiimzeitung 6

Netherlands Videotex V

V

Sweden Text-TV B

Sweden Datavision V

Finland Telset V

organization

CNET (Centre Nationale des Etudes de Telecommunications)

CCETT (Centre Commun d’Etudes des Telecommunications1

Deutsche Bundespost (PTT administration)

ARD : first

German TV channel and ZDF : second German TV channel

BDZV : newspaper publishers

association

Netherlands PTT

Philips

Sveriges Radio

Televerket (PTT administration)

PTT/Sanoma publishing/Oy Nokia

Other information

Undergoing trials with PTT administration

Undergoing trials with TDF (broadcast monopoly transmission

agency)

Uses UK viewdata software and UK GEC 4080 computer; Demonstrated at 1977 Berlin Radio Fair; service trial 1980

Also demonstrated at 1977 Berlin Fair

Also demonstrated at 1977 Berlin Fair

As for Bildschirmtext

Experimental operations since 1976

Known to be under development by Televerket/Philips/ Swedish publishers

Demonstrated in March 1977; pilot trial during 1978

Services are being developed very actively in other countries. The situation in Europe is summarized in Table 2. Interest is intense and experimentation is widespread: the Antiope system developed in France, for example, has many advanced features and has attracted much attention, although, unlike Prestel, it is some way behind in practical implementation. lo In Canada, the Bell Canada telephone company has announced its intention to undertake a trial of its own Videotex system in 1979. In Japan, a Videotex system known as ‘Captains’ and capable of dealing with the full ideographic character set of the Japanese language has been announced by the Nippon Telephone and Telegraph public corporation.

In the USA, there has been remarkably little publicly visible activity in this field; although background work is being undertaken by many organizations, the only public services or trials are the enhanced cable television information services referred to above. The reasons for this appear to be mainly regulatory and are discussed

lo A field trial is planned for the Paris below. suburb of Velizey in 1980. In addition to the ‘public’ systems, typically developed by tele-



communications carriers or broadcasting authorities, Videotex systems are also being developed by private interests, apparently for use primarily within individual organizations.

What are the principal lessons of experience to date? Without lengthy discussion of events in the individual countries, it is possible to identify the major themes.

The ‘editorial’ aspect of electronic publishing is proving more complex, and more problematic, than originally expected. For example, material from existing printed media cannot simply be copied on to a Videotex system: an acceptable result requires novel editorial skills. The carrier organization must define its relationship towards the editorial and information provider roles. Even where, as in the UK, the Videotex carrier seeks to remain aloof from editorial matters, the inadequate skills and resources of many smaller information providers lead to intense demands on the Post Office staff for advice and liaison and some aspects, notably indexing, must involve them heavily. The solution now being promoted by the Post Office is to encourage - by means of charges to information providers - the smaller information providers to publish within a larger database managed by an ‘umbrella’ provider or editorial organization.

While the implementation of the Videotex technology involves no fundamental difficulties, complex problems of traffic analysis, network architecture, dimensioning and cost reduction remain to be solved. How many terminals will a given computer configuration support? How should local databases be kept up to date? Should the system’s ‘intelligence’ and databases be centralized or distributed? What are the statistical characteristics of traffic that will influence the optimum system characteristics? Many of these issues in engineering economics can be resolved only when much more extensive field trial experience has accumulated.

Marketing and market analysis are undoubtedly the weakest features of the development of Videotex and Teletext so far - although one must make an exception of the successful marketing of Prestel to UK information providers. Fundamental questions about Videotex remain unanswered: for example, which groups (business or residential? high or middle income?) are expected to use it most? What is the likely relationship to existing media? What kind of user preferences or expectations must it meet? Research on these questions - at Communications Studies and Planning in London and at other centres - has only just begun.

Something is now known about these various problems, however, and the key policy questions for the next few years can be discerned.

Economics and user acceptance

costs

It is now possible to cost the physical infrastructure of systems of the kinds considered here, but it remains difficult to estimate the total costs of the service because of the limited experience on the ‘editorial’ side - information provision. Moreover, it is difficult to convert cost estimates into pricing schemes because of large uncertainties about the likely extent and intensity of use.

Nevertheless, some broad indications can be given. Two illustrative and approximate calculations, for US cost levels, are given here to demonstrate the general pattern. Consider the example of one-way


Source: Informal industry interviews in the UK. Nore: Increase of broadcast Teletext could increase the cost.

” T. Johnson, Teletext: Data Transmission by Television, a Financial Times Report, London, 1975.


Table 3. projected costs of Videotex terminals, UK Prestel standards (incremental

cost additional to basic TV receiver, at 1978 value of money).

Elements costed

‘Chip set’ (LSI circuits) only

‘Modules’ (LSI circuits wired on printed circuit boards)

1979 projection

f32-f4Q

f80-f100

1980 projection

f20

Estimate not available

Total incremental price to purchaser of television receiver f2OQ - f 250 f150 -f200

broadcast and two-way viewdata services serving a user population of 250000. US costs for the broadcast Teletext system have been estimated at about $3 million annually for the physical infrastructure, and about $5 million for information provision, using cost estimates by Johnson,” adjusted to take account of inflation and US wage levels. The cost per user per month would be $2.70, in addition to terminal rentals.

Similar estimates have been made for a Videotex system serving the same market. Both the nature of the service and the price will be different: the information base will be more extensive and inherently more costly - say, $7 million in the USA at current prices. A physical system capable of accommodating an average of 10 minutes of usage per user per day would imply operating costs of perhaps $35 million, including capital charges for the opportunity cost of using telephone system capacity. Thus the total cost per user per month - again additional to terminal rentals - would be of the order of $12.00.

At present, terminals are produced in small quantities and costs are high. However, manufacturers are developing terminals for mass production: for Prestel in the UK, 11 different terminal types are being developed by eight different manufacturers. Most of these terminals are capable of receiving both a normal television picture, and Ceefax and Oracle. Costs will depend heavily on production volume, and hence both on manufacturers’ expectation of the future of Videotex - a classic ‘chicken and egg’ problem - and on standardization.

The predictions of terminal costs made by Communications Studies and Planning, Mackintosh Consultants and industry sources during 1975-1977, have had to be modified as the expected timescale of market development for Videotex has slipped. Table 3 presents some recent views expressed by industry sources in the UK. They undoubtedly reflect a conservative view of short-term market prospects and the total could be reduced by volume production and by competition. Ultimate sales prices in the range $70- 150, originally predicted for 1980- 1985, still appear technically and economically achievable, but now seem unlikely to be realized until after 1985.

Potential demand: evidence and uncertainties The growth of the ‘information economy’ can usefully be considered to be driven by two distinct forces: the growing demand for information goods and services by final consumers (household and government); and the growing purchases of information-related inputs by business enterprises. Both could give rise to demand for Videotex and Teletext; but what evidence is there for an evaluation of



l2 A two-year programme involving extensive survey research and computer modelling -funded at Communications Studies and Planning, London, by the Lona Ranoe Studies Division of Post Office Telecommunications. I3 In discussing this issue I am drawing on work by Raymond Ft. Panko and Rosemary Panko (private communication, 1977). I4 News and Editorial Content and Readership of the Daily Newspaper, ANPA (American Newspaper Publishers Association), Washington, DC, April 1973. l5 Gordon Lusty Survey Research Ltd. National Newspaper Readership Study: Fall 1975, conducted for Canadian Daily Newspaper Publishers Associated, Ontario, May 1976.

that demand? Research into the detailed modelling of demand for information media, including Prestel/Videotex, Teletext and other new electronic media is now underway in the III&l2 but since no detailed quantitative results from that work are available, it is necessary to take a more informal approach to forming a judgement about the market prospects. One useful way to approach the problem would be to pose the fundamental questions:

0 Are there significant ‘behavioural’ barriers to user acceptance of Teletext as an information medium?

0 If not, would a forecast of the adoption of Teletext service on a large scale be compatible with reasonable projections of future expenditure patterns by households or businesses?

Comprehensive answers to these questions cannot yet be given, but useful evidence is accumulating. A discussion of two examples will serve to give the flavour of work currently in hand.

‘Acceptability’ issues - an illustration It is dangerous to adopt a simplistic view of what the uses of existing ‘information’ media really are, and hence of how acceptable any particular kind of new electronic media may be.

It is useful, for example, to examine how newspapers and magazines are used - that is, the readers’ perusal styles.13 New electronic media such as Videotex may have to become compatible with some existing perusal styles, although it is possible that behaviour will adapt so that some entirely new style appears among users.

In the USA, 84% of all newspaper pages are seen by the average reader. That ‘browsing’ is not very selective is indicated by the finding that 80% of all women’s pages are opened by the average male reader, while the typical female reader opens 70% of all sports pages. A mere 4% read only specific information, and 53% start on page one and read through to the back of the paper. Another 37% turn first to specific items, then go through the rest of the paper.14

In one Canadian survey, 55% of the readers were found to start habitually by looking at the front page, and read all the way through to the back page. l5 Another 17% looked at some specific item first, then read the paper from front to back. Another 25% scanned the paper quickly, with 13% looking at specific items first (the other 12% did not). Only 3% looked only at preselected parts of the paper seeking specific kinds of information.

Even the most enthusiastic devotee of viewdata has to admit that a selective information-retrieval system organized in a logically structured tree system is not well adapted to accommodate ‘browsing’.

Expenditure and demand Given one illustration of the quite extensive evidence that Teletext is complementary to existing media, and in many respects not a close substitute, it is interesting to examine some broad but nevertheless interesting economic evidence relevant to the future consumer market for Videotex and Teletext. Despite the onset of the ‘information economy’, the share of information goods and services in household expenditure remains modest. Consider the case of the UK. In 1976, the average British household spent about X4 per month on the



printed media; about E3.50 on telecommunications and postage; about &6 on television and radio receivers (to rent or buy), and licence fees; about f2.50 on tickets to cinemas, theatres and sporting-events. US and Canadian figures are not dramatically higher. If a ‘mature’ Videotex service using mass-produced terminals at a cost of, say, &12 per month for terminal rental and usage charges is to be widely taken up in the market place, it is certain that:

l This level of expenditure cannot be sustained by any plausible (or indeed any) level of diversion of demand for printed media.

0 Such a level of expenditure would imply a considerable diversion of expenditure from other information-related items in the household budget; or, if the diversions hypothesized are to be kept within reasonable limits, we must assume some diversion of other kinds of discretionary expenditures (luxury clothing, say, or leisure automobile trips) in favour of Videotex.

The latter possibility is not unreasonable, however - the optimistic view about expenditure on Videotex or Teletext proposes that better information about, say, camping trips saves unnecessary costs of travel and hunting for suitable locations. Expenditure on a very good, up-to-date home information service will be highly substitutable for expenditure on camping - or car travel - itself. Consequently, the growth of the new services would not be limited by the low level of existing expenditure on information media. More conservative commentators point to the long-term stability of the share of household income spent on the media, despite radical changes such as the acceptance of television by the mass market, and are sceptical of dramatic shifts in expenditure patterns. A judgement between the two schools of thought must await deeper research and the evidence of the first few years of marketing the new services.

Problems of policy and institutions

The ‘stakeholders’ The organizations and institutions likely to be affected by Teletext are astonishingly diverse, ranging from newspapers and their groups of employees - as various as journalists and compositors - to consumer protection groups or manufacturers of television receivers. Moreover, the ‘packaging’ of viewdata service cuts across the boundaries of conventionally quite distinct activities such as telecommunications, publishing or computing. The interests involved are listed below.

Electronics manufacturers, especially manufacturers of television receivers. Manufacturers, facing the prospect of future saturation of consumer markets, welcome Teletext as a logical next stage in a marketing sequence that leads from monochrome television, via colour television and Teletext, to the ultimate intelligent home terminal. In the UK, the industry association BREMA has been a major force behind Teletext (promoting, for example, the harmonization of technical standards between the Prestel, Ceefax and Oracle systems).

The carriers. In the UK, the carriers are Post Office Tele- communications (PO) and the broadcasting authorities. The objectives of the PO as a telecommunications carrier are more



” In the UK, for example, they include very major business organizations, such as the Financial Times group of companies, and have formed their own industry association, the Association of Viewdata Information Providers. AVIP has already proved itself effective in negotiating with the Post Office over the charges made to information providers for access to the system and for the storage of their data. ’ 7 Journalists and New Technology, National Union of Journalists, London, 1978.

apparent than those of the broadcasting authorities: Prestel not only provides the PO with revenue in the form of direct billings for usage charges (time-based charges) but also increased revenue from telephone call charges.

The information providers. While operators of some electronic publishing systems (notably Telset in Finland) appear to be building up their own editorial capabilities in competition with the print media, it seems likely that most systems will draw on the existing publishing organizations in building up their databases.

In the UK, a wide and rapidly growing range of organizations wishing to publish electronically their information (which may range from job advertisements to scientific information via the weather or the ‘jokes of the week’) have become Prestel information providers. For Videotex systems, with their potentially limitless size of database, the providers are a significant force.16

The print media. Many print-publishing organizations such as newspapers or magazines have ‘hedged their bets’ by establishing themselves as Prestel information providers. Nevertheless, the interests of the print media as such may be threatened by competition from new media. Whether such fears are justified is a matter of controversy: some observers feel, on the contrary, that synergistic effects will stimulate both markets. It does seem clear, however, that some particular kinds of printed media are particularly at risk - a notable example being specialized magazines and local newspapers - which are heavily dependent on classified advertising.

Unions. The reactions of labour unions to the new electronic publishing media constitute a particularly sensitive indicator of the kinds of fundamental issues that may be raised. A clear trend can now be discerned - especially in Europe - towards increased union anxiety about the effect that new electronic technologies will have on employment. How far this is justified in the long term, and how far it is a reflection of essentially temporary economic conditions of slow growth in demand, is a profoundly important topic that is, however, beyond the scope of this article. Given that this anxiety does exist, it is clear that Videotex and Teletext will be a focus for it.

A few quotations from a recent report by the National Union of Journalists in the UK will give the flavour of some current union thinking:”

The Annan Committee on the future of broadcasting failed to recognise the dangers inherent in accepting, for the time being, that all three systems should develop without restraints . . . Members must be alerted to the extent that Teletext already affects our jobs, and its imminent dangers.

The threat to newspapers from viewdata is . . . much greater than that from Ceefax

and Oracle . . . If specific information is available through a quick call to viewdata, newspapers sales could be in danger.

Of course, while the new services are as yet on a small scale, no countervailing voices can be heard from those who will ultimately fill the many new jobs they will create - although the telecommunications unions in the UK, notably the Post Office Engineering Union, are vociferous in their support of service innovations such as viewdata. So far, no serious attempt has been



made to analyze the relative labour-intensiveness of Videotex and Teletext and traditional printed media, or to model the effects of future growth and interaction on total employment: as the policy debate unfolds, it will become increasingly clear what a serious deficiency this is. If the necessary research is to be available in time to inform policy making, steps to initiate it must be taken quickly.

“In the UK, these are innovators within the Post Office and the broadcasting authorities. ” See Ft. Pye, ‘The British Post Office -an extensive monopoly’ (‘Focus on Europe’), Telecommunications Policy, Vol 1, No 4, September 1977, pp 356-359. “These pressures have led to the efforts by the Post Office mentioned above to promote - by means including the adoption of high access charges for information providers in the public Prestel service - the handling of the smaller providers’ data by a few large ‘umbrella’ providers.

The policy agenda The public policy issues generated by the development of new electronic publishing media stem from the interaction of the interests of the various ‘stakeholders’ with the initial policies of the Teletext entrepreneurs’* and the existing structure of rules and institutions for telecommunications. Some are relatively independent of special features of the industry structure or regulatory regime in one country, and some are quite specific to a single country. This concluding section introduces in turn several issues of general international relevance, making some observations about the special problems being encountered in the USA.

Rapid growth in the potentially very large US market would have a major impact on the all-important issue of terminal costs and hence improve the worldwide prospects of the new media.

Fundamental policy problems that may be expected to arise in almost any policy context likely to be found in a Western or ‘market economy’ country fall naturally into four groups:

0 Problems of editorial policy and control. 0 Problems of ‘intellectual property’. 0 Problems of competition and competitive impact. 0 Problems of telecommunications regulations and standardization.

Editorial policy and control. Two essentially different strategies are open to the organization owning and operating the physical infrastructure of a Teletext system. The British Post Office, although not strictly a ‘common carrier’ by the terms of the 1969 Post Office Act that established it as a public corporation,” has chosen to maintain a policy of more or less strict editorial neutrality towards information providers on ‘Prestel’, subject only to the provisions of generally applicable laws on obscenity, incitement to violence, and so on. The PO has consciously rejected any attempt to endow it with general editorial responsibility.

The Post Office, however, has found that even a ‘neutral’ carrier must meet considerable demands for editorial involvement in a ‘technical’ sense in order to ensure a good database structure, efficient and comprehensible to users; an acceptable standard of presentation of material; and effective indexing. *O In any case, the ‘neutral’ stance is not without its problems. For example, the UK Advertising Standards Authority, an unofficial but prestigious advisory body, has criticized the PO policy, claiming that such problems as the absence of clear demarcation between ‘editorial content’ and advertising may violate accepted standards of ethics in advertising. Others have raised complex legal issues about liability for any breaches of law which might occur. On the whole, however, the ‘common carrier’ stance appears to have weathered the storm of criticism rather successfully.

In some other countries, the problem of editorial control and institutional structure is acute. In the Federal Republic of Germany,



for example, the potential information providers, notably newspapers, are seeking a high degree of control over the new medium, and the inclusion of clearly identifiable individual ‘newspapers’ and ‘magazines’ in the new medium, as is done in Prestel. This seems to be at odds with the intention of the telecommunications carrier, the Deutsche Bundespost, although policy is clearly still in a fluid state.

Intellectual property. So far, the problems of ‘intellectual property’ - copyright, payment of journalists, and so on - have not become acute, but there are clear signs that these issues are being raised in the UK by the National Union of Journalists and others; as indeed is the related problem of possible extensions by analogy of the ‘rights’ of particular trade unions to organize particular kinds of jobs, to cover all or part of the broadcast Teletext staffs.

Competition and competitive impacts. While many different kinds of systems could clearly serve the same or similar markets, it is not yet clear how competition between different suppliers will develop. It is not even certain how far some services, notably Videotex and broadcast Teletext, will be competing substitutes or will be complementary to one another. In highly regulated markets, overt competition is unlikely, but competition is very probable in the US market, where several kinds of suppliers - the telephone companies, data carriers or interconnected cable TV systems - could undoubtedly offer very similar services.

Even at the likely points of maximum conflict - between Videotex and regional classified advertising, or between use of Oracle and prime-time viewing figures for television advertising - open conflict over future market shares or substitution of one medium for another are not yet apparent. They may be expected to be a highly visible and contentious feature of the longer-term telecommunications policy scene.

Problems of telecommunications regulation, industry structure and standardization. The difference between the UK and US market structure underlines the importance of regulatory issues. The problem of relations between carrier and publisher in the Federal Republic of Germany is one example, and the issues of the relative roles of broadcast and telecommunications agencies remain unresolved there, as they do in the Netherlands.

The new services intensify problems about regulation, monopoly and control of terminal attachments throughout the European countries, and raise complex problems of technical standards currently being considered in CCITT and ISO.

Considerable policy problems and institutional barriers stand in the way of the extensive implementation of Teletext in the USA; indeed, these obstacles undoubtedly have a good deal to do with the remarkable lead that European countries, notably the UK, have obtained in this field. All three kinds of organizations which could have taken the lead in developing and implementing Teletext face peculiar difficulties in doing so within the existing US industry structure and regulatory framework:

0 Telephone companies are potentially very well placed to provide a Teletext service. Not only do they have a distribution network


l

0


that is virtually universal, but they also possess a versatile, enforceable and virtually universal billing system. Their participation in Videotex systems have been held back, however, by regulatory policies requiring the separation of data processing from communications, and telephony from text-message communications: Videotex systems would span both these pairs of categories. It seems likely, however, that recent regulatory decisions, together with the telecommunications legislation currently before the US Congress, will remove most of these regulatory barriers before long. Cable television companies, notably multiple system operators (MSOs) and satellite interconnection operators, like Home Box Office, are in an increasingly strong position to provide Teletext services of the one-way wideband type as individual markets become aggregated into larger groups of users capable of supporting a wider range of services. Broadcasting organizations could, like their European counterparts, readily provide a broadcast Teletext service provided no regulatory objections were raised on the grounds that Teletext is a means of message transmission. It is hard to see, however, what economic motive the commercial television companies would have for introducing such a service, given the virtual impossibility of charging for it, except perhaps on the rather debatable argument that the network with the first or best broadcast Teletext service would attract improved ratings. It seems most unlikely that this effect would outweigh the direct loss of advertising revenue due to reduced audiences for television advertising.

The Public Broadcasting System might, consequently, find itself in a particularly favourable position to be the leading innovator in the USA with broadcast Teletext services, employing them for purposes of social interest along the lines already pioneered by their work on captioning for the deaf.


videotex, prestel and teletext: the economics and politics of some electronic publishing media

Documents