BBC Television Ceefax, the first teletext service, launched on 23 September 1974. This service allowed BBC viewers to view textual information such as the latest news on their television. CEEFAX did not make a full transition to digital television, instead being gradually replaced by the new interactive BBCi service before being fully closed down on 22 October 2012. In March 2003 the BBC announced that from the end of May 2003 (subsequently deferred to 14 July) it intended to transmit all eight of its domestic television channels (including the 15 regional variations of BBC 1) unencrypted from the Astra 2D satellite. This
Teletext Teletext Teletext (or broadcast teletext) is a television information retrieval service created in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s by the Philips Lead Designer for VDUs, John Adams. Teletext is a means of sending pages of text and simple geometric shapes from mosaic blocks to a VBI decoder equipped television screen by use of a number of reserved vertical blanking interval lines that together form the dark band dividing pictures horizontally on the television screen. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including news, weather and TV schedules. Paged subtitle (or closed captioning) information is also transmitted within