Teletext

Forgotten TV & Film · 1974

Published 19 August 2026

Ceefax placed pages of news, weather, sport and other information inside an ordinary television signal. Introduced by the BBC in 1974, it let viewers type in a page number with the remote and read the information whenever they wanted. Familiar page numbers became shortcuts to results, headlines and later subtitles.

Why It Mattered

It offered an on-demand information service years before websites and mobile apps made that expectation routine. Its severe technical limits also created a distinctive form of writing, forcing reports, scores and headlines into compact blocks of television text.

1974 service

- BBC work on the teletext system began in 1972, and regular Ceefax service began on 23 September 1974.
- The service let viewers select extra news and information on their television screens.
- Ceefax began carrying subtitles in 1979.

Page-based reporting

- BBC Sport records page 300 as a sport starting point, with separate pages for headlines, football, cricket and rugby.
- Sports reports were constrained to four paragraphs and 80 words, with 33-character headlines.

Final broadcast

- Ceefax remained on air for 38 years.
- Its final broadcast came in 2012 as analogue television transmission gave way to digital service.

Associated With

BBC - creator or operator

Defining Feature

Viewer-selected pages of text information displayed through a television set

Status

Discontinued - Ceefax's final broadcast accompanied the UK analogue-to-digital television changeover in 2012

Primary Records

- **History of the BBC: 1970s**
- **Ceefax at 40: Could You Write an 80-word Match Report?**

Image Sources

- All one image sources are not yet verified — editorial review required.

Rights Notice

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