Electra (teletext) VBI (WTBS was in turn owned by Turner Broadcasting System, which would purchase the Hanna-Barbera animation studio, and most shows from sister company Ruby-Spears, from Taft successor Great American Broadcasting in 1991; Turner is now part of Time Warner). Electra was America's answer to the British Ceefax or ORACLE systems, providing news headlines, weather, entertainment/lifestyle info, and other information. Electra used the World System Teletext (WST) protocol, the same protocol used by Ceefax and ORACLE, as well as by other teletext services in the rest of the European continent. Electra was one of the very few American teletext services in
Teletext the television signal. It is closely linked to the PAL broadcast system used in Europe. Other teletext systems have been developed to work with the SECAM and NTSC systems, but teletext failed to gain widespread acceptance in North America and other areas where NTSC is used. In contrast, teletext is nearly ubiquitous across Europe as well as some other regions, with most major broadcasters providing a teletext service. Common teletext services include TV schedules, regularly updated current affairs and sport news, simple games (such as quizzes) and subtitles (or closed captioning). Teletext is broadcast in numbered "pages." For example, a