Gateway
Said to be one of the three most comprehensive videotex trials conducted
in the United
States, the 
Southern
California Field Trial of Gateway runs from March 15 to Dec. 31, 1982.
The trial involves 200 households in Ranchos
Palos Verdes and 150 in Mission Viejo
and is conducted by Videotex America, a joint venture of Times-Mirror
Videotex Services, a subsidiary of the Los Angeles Times, and Infomart of
Canada. The four most useful services, as ranked by the testers, are news,
banking, shopping and games.
While many details of the usership studies were
kept proprietary, it was reported that participants said they wanted a
comprehensive home information service and not just a newspaper or
entertainment.
The system goes commercial in the fall of 1984
and is predicted to break even by 1988-89. It closes, however, in late
1986 with the partners having invested an estimated $20 million.
At its height, Gateway technology was used by
newspaper companies in seven U.S. cities:
- Los Angeles — Times Mirror
- Minneapolis — Cowles Media
- Jacksonville — Jacksonville Journal
- Sacramento — McClatchy Newspapers
- Phoenix — Pulliam Newspapers
- San Francisco — San Francisco Chronicle
- Washington — Washington Post