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 systems provided by Kentucky Educational Television and carried on KET's stations, both services providing agriculturally oriented information) and major-market U.S. TV stations (such as "Metrotext", which was formerly carried on station KTTV in Los Angeles, and "KeyFax", formerly on WFLD in Chicago). Perhaps the most prominent of American teletext providers was the "Electra" teletext service, using WST, which was broadcast starting in the early 1980s on the vertical blanking interval (VBI) of the American cable channel WTBS. Electra was owned and operated by Taft Broadcasting and Satellite Syndicated Systems (SSS). Electra ran up until 1993, when it was shut down due