Brands over time

TalkTalk
over time

Every year keeps its colour across every chart.│ ChatGPT, 30 Nov 2022

74 of TalkTalk's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, 2016 to 2026, measured sentence by sentence. How the writing has moved over the years, how it compares with 14 other mobile and broadband providers, and what it sounds like in its own words.

Pages measured
74
Years covered
2016–26
Archived before ChatGPT
0
Blog · press
16 · 58

01 · Homepage

One capture a year

TalkTalk's homepage from 2009 to 2026, closest to 1 July, from the Internet Archive. Pick a year or press play. Each headline is quoted from its capture and links to the archived copy.

2026talktalk.co.uk30 Jun 2026
TalkTalk homepage, 30 Jun 2026

Screenshot of TalkTalk’s homepage (talktalk.co.uk) as archived by the Internet Archive on 30 Jun 2026. © TalkTalk or its licensors. Shown for comparison and review; not endorsed by TalkTalk.

Homepage

2026

“Smarter Wi-Fi tailored to your home”

Page title

Great Value Broadband Provider | Wi-Fi Built Around You | TalkTalk

Open on the Internet Archive
  1. 2011What speed can I get?
  2. 2013Why choose TalkTalk Plus TV?
  3. 2015TV on Demand Boosts
  4. 2022Switch now. Save big.
  5. 2024Get a £50 reward card on us
  6. 2026Smarter Wi-Fi tailored to your home

14 captures. Screenshots are rendered from the archive and can pull in images archived later than the page itself; dates come from the capture. Years without a capture are greyed out in the strip.

02 · Measures by year

How the writing moved

Every year’s pages, averaged. Pick a measure. Hatched bars rest on fewer than 10 pages: context, not a finding. The page count sits under each year.

Sentence lengthAverage words per sentence.
10
20
30
Telecoms avg 13.2
18.8
24.8
14.5
15.3
19.8
20.5
19.3
12.3
ChatGPT · Nov 2022
2015no pages
20161 pp
20171 pp
20184 pp
20191 pp
202017 pp
202115 pp
202210 pp
2023no pages
2024no pages
2025no pages
20261 pp
10 or more pagesFewer than 10 pages: context, not a findingSector averageChatGPT released
Show as a table
YearSentence lengthPages
201618.81
201724.81
201814.54
201915.31
202019.817
202120.515
202219.310
202612.31

Years with pages: 2016 (1), 2017 (1), 2018 (4), 2019 (1), 2020 (17), 2021 (15), 2022 (10), 2026 (1). Dates come from page metadata, structured data, the URL, or the month a page was first archived (a latest possible date).

03 · Against its sector

TalkTalk among mobile and broadband providers

Each dot is one brand’s mean across all its measured pages; the tick is the sector average. Only brands with 10 or more measured pages are shown or counted. Select a dot to open that brand.

  1. Questions

    29% less than its sector

    3.0 against a sector average of 4.3; 4th lowest of 13.

  2. "We"

    26% more than its sector

    42% against a sector average of 34%; 3rd highest of 13.

  3. Sentence length

    25% more than its sector

    16.5 against a sector average of 13.2; highest of 13.

Sentence lengthHighest of 13
TalkTalk 16.5
9.716.5
Contractions5th lowest of 13
TalkTalk 15.2
12.725.2
"You"Mid-table, 8th of 13
TalkTalk 53%
30%84%
"We"3rd highest of 13
TalkTalk 42%
14%57%
Questions4th lowest of 13
TalkTalk 3.0
0.97.0
Long words2nd highest of 13
TalkTalk 28%
19%31%
Em dashes5th highest of 13
TalkTalk 3.00
0.974.72
AI-associated words4th lowest of 13
TalkTalk 0.89
0.462.88
Exclamations5th lowest of 13
TalkTalk 0.34
0.162.28
Page lengthMid-table, 7th of 13
TalkTalk 956
5111,910

Pages measured: TalkTalk 74 · Hyperoptic 46 · Community Fibre 133 · SMARTY 183 · iD Mobile 49 · Lebara 0 · Lycamobile 112 · O2 138 · Zen Internet 186 · BT 9 · Sky 324 · Virgin Media 185 · Vodafone 172 · Three 141 · giffgaff 63. Measures and method: SGR-010; the brand list and sectors come from SGR-009.

04 · Vocabulary

Words TalkTalk uses more than its peers

The words this brand reaches for more often than the rest of its sector. This is subject matter more than voice.

wi-fi60.2 vs 4.1
websites56.2 vs 4.0
track40.4 vs 2.7
fibre119.1 vs 25.6
speed77.9 vs 15.0
targeted15.5 vs 0.7
visitors14.6 vs 0.4
correctly13.8 vs 0.3
function13.8 vs 0.5
dropped13.3 vs 0.3
measuring13.3 vs 0.3
tailor13.3 vs 0.3
TalkTalkSector peers

Uses per 10,000 words, ranked by weighted log-odds (Monroe et al. 2008) across 74 pages. Product names and page furniture filtered automatically; list not yet reviewed.

05 · In its own words

What it sounded like

Openings of real pages, quoted word for word, oldest first. Each links to the page, or to the Internet Archive’s copy when it has gone.

2016 · Press
““During a year in which Government data showed nine in ten large UK businesses were successfully breached, the TalkTalk attack was notable for our decision to be open and honest with our customers from the outset. This gave them the best chance of protecting themselves and we remain firm that this was the right approach for them and for our business.”
TalkTalk statement
2018 · Press
“James Powell with effect from today is stepping down as a Non-Executive Director of the Company. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Powell for his contribution to the Board and wishes him well for the future.”
Directorate Change
2020 · Press
“Life is looking a little bit different for all of us this summer. From iconic music festivals like Glastonbury to global sporting events such as the Olympics, events everywhere have been postponed and cancelled, leaving summer plans scuppered for many.”
Get your sporting and entertainment fix this summer
2026 · Blog
“In 2026, the digital world is set for record levels of online activity. We’ve used our expert insights to predict when traffic will spike – and planned accordingly.”
2026 Online Trends
2026 · Blog
“In 2026, the digital world is set for record levels of online activity. We’ve used our expert insights to predict when traffic will spike – and planned accordingly.”
2026 Online Trends

06 · Every page

All 82 pages, by year

The full list behind every number above, with links to the live page or the archived copy. 74 count towards the measures; the rest were not measured (5 pdf report (annual report, info pack), 3 mostly short lines (lists, tables, link pages) rather than prose). Pages with no reliable date count in the overall numbers but in no year.

20261 page
202210 pages
202115 pages
202017 pages
20191 page
20184 pages
20171 page
20161 page
In the overall numbers, no year24 pages
Not measured8 pages

07 · Method

How this was measured

The pages

TalkTalk's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, fetched from the live site in 2026 and from the Internet Archive for 2015 to November 2022. Homepages are shown as captures; product and help pages are not measured.

The measures

Code counts from ScriptGrain’s writing instruments: sentence length and rhythm, contractions, pronouns, punctuation, long words, and three published lists of AI-associated words. No AI model reads or judges any page.

What it cannot say

These measures describe style. They cannot tell who or what wrote a page, and nothing here says or implies that any brand used AI to write.

Sample sizes

Every number carries its page count. Years under 10 pages, and before-and-after comparisons with under 10 pages on a side, are shown as context only.

Sentence length
Average words per sentence.
Sentence rhythm
How much sentence length varies (standard deviation over mean). Higher reads less even.
Contractions
Contractions (we're, you'll, it's) per 1,000 words. A rough gauge of how conversational the writing is.
"You"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "you": how much the writing addresses the reader.
"We"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "we": how much the writing talks about the organisation.
Questions
Question marks per 1,000 words.
Exclamations
Exclamation marks per 1,000 words.
Long words
Share of words with seven or more letters.
Em dashes
Em dashes per 1,000 words.
AI-associated words
Words from SGR-007's three AI-associated lists, per 1,000 words. These are style markers that people used long before ChatGPT; a higher rate says nothing about who or what wrote the page.
AI-era marketing words
Marketing words that became more common in AI-era copy (seamless, elevate, unlock...), per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Quieter LLM-favoured words
Everyday words language models are known to over-use, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
AI-associated sentence shapes
Sentence patterns such as "not just X, but Y", found by ScriptGrain's cliche checker, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Page length
Average words per page.

Studies: SGR-009: Do brands in the same sector sound the same? · SGR-010: How UK brands write · SGR-011: Did brand writing change after ChatGPT?.