BBC Red Button BBC Red Button BBC Red Button is a branding used for digital interactive television services provided by the BBC, and broadcast in the United Kingdom. The services replaced Ceefax, the BBC's analogue teletext service. The service was launched in September 1999 as BBC Text. It was relaunched in November 2001 under the BBCi brand and operated under this name until late 2008, when it was rebranded as BBC Red Button. The "red button" name refers to the common interface on remote controls for digital televisions and set-top boxes, a red push-button which launches digital teletext services. Although initially marketed as
Teletext hardware that could download pages of up-to-date news, reports, facts and figures targeting U.K. agriculture. The original idea was the brainchild of Philips (CAL) Laboratories in 1970. In 1971, CAL engineer John Adams created a design and proposal for UK broadcasters. His configuration contained all the fundamental elements of classic Teletext including pages of 24 rows with 40 characters each, page selection, sub pages of information and vertical blanking interval data transmission. A major objective for Adams during the concept development stage was to make Teletext affordable to the home user. In reality, there was no scope to make an