Time will run out at midnight tonight for a quaint remnant of an earlier era.

Telstra confirmed that there will be no reprieve for the 'talking clock' – the exact-time service that's been part of Australians' lives for 66 years.

At the third stroke at midnight on September 30, the service, accessed by the phone number 1194, will end.

No longer will that striking, somewhat ominous, voice intone: "at the third stroke, it will be... 10.27 and 50 seconds" before the familiar "pip, pip, pip".