You could hear a newspaper on your phone in the ’80s and ’90s.
It was easy. Just dial a local audiotex number and you were connected to news and other features.
On January 30, 1984, The Miami News published a New York Times news service article called, “Move Over, Videotex; Here Comes Audiotex.”
“Videotex, in which people retrieve information using computers or specially equipped television sets, has not really caught on, partly because most people do not have computers. But virtually everyone has a telephone. So now many companies are trying to offer information services using electronic voices.”
The technology was new in 1984, but during the following decade audiotex became a key new media and information service, at least until something called the Web came along.
Audiotex faded away long before smartphones, however, there were portable phones in the 1980s and 1990s.
Perhaps someone listened to audiotex on one of those phones.
If so, I guess this commercial shows an example of 1990 mobile news technology:
The Los Angeles Times described audiotex, and imagined the future of newspapers, in 1991:
“Newspapers, wire services and broadcast networks are unlikely to be replaced as the primary news-gathering agencies in America; what will change will be the means of delivering that news and how that news is integrated into the broad information mix of the future. The news organizations that survive — and thrive — will be those that adapt best to the new technologies.
The ‘new’ technology used by the most newspapers so far is not terribly radical; it’s the telephone.
More than 300 newspapers, including The Times, have (900) area code telephone numbers that require users to pay a fee, part of which goes to the paper, to get recorded information. About 50 other newspapers offer such telephone services free to users but sell time on the telephone announcements to advertisers.
The Times has (900) numbers for stock market reports, crossword puzzle clues and a horoscope. The paper is considering (900) numbers for weather reports, restaurant reviews, soap opera updates, sports scores and recipes, as well as travel, entertainment and real estate information.
….Few newspapers are making a profit on audiotex so far — Atlanta hopes to break even within the next year — but newspapers see the service as a means of recycling information they already have and an opportunity to build extra bridges to their increasingly elusive readers and advertisers.”
— “Newspapers And The Future”
Los Angeles Times, June 3, 1991
