Times’ Money..

Speaking Clock making £21 million a year

The iconic speaking clock is apparently making BT around £21 million a year, with the 74-year-old technology still proving remarkably resilient.

Although it has been hijacked by the likes of Lenny Henry (in the name of charity) and, controversially, Tinkerbell for a sponsored tie-in, there have been just four main speakers in its entire history.

And with 70 million calls a year, at a cost of 30p per call, that amounts to a staggering profit for an automated phone line.

Popular

“It’s hard to say why the speaking clock is popular,” a BT spokesperson told TechRadar.

“The speaking clock has been around for 74 years so a lot of people have grown up with dialling 123.

“BT’s speaking clock is a national institution, viewed with great affection by the general public.”

Today the talking clock is accurate to within five thousands of a second, a far cry from the original accuracy of one-tenth of a second and it still influences timings for Big Ben and the News at Ten.

For those of you who wish to know the time in future, please ring my mobile, and I will do it for half of what it would cost to ring the speaking clock!