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Skytext closes down after 15 years

Sky Television has relaunched Open... under the new name of Sky Active. The service, accessible by SkyDigital viewers by pressing Red on any Sky-branded channel, brings together Open alongside Sky News Active, Sky Movies Active, and Sky Sports Extra. Rumours presist that a Sky Active Ireland will be launched early next year, encorporating online betting from PaddyPower's and Eircom's interactive Phone Book.

Meanwhile the Skytext analogue service has been finally shut down after 15 years of service. The move follows Sky's launch of Sky Text Digital earlier this year and the shutdown of Sky's final channels on analogue Astra last week. Analogue viewers pressing Text are now greeted by a racing results service instead and a message to tune to Sky Text Digital. Within the last fortnight BBC CEEFAX has also disappeared from most BBC channels on Sky's digital satellite platform to be replaced by soley by BBC TEXT. (NI viewers can continue to view CEEFAX on BBC NEWS 24, an option obviously not open to ROI viewers...)

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