BBC to drop Red Button teletext
September 17, 2019 10.41 Europe/London By Julian Clover
The BBC is to remove the text elements of its Red Button service, 45 years after the original Ceefax made its debut.
Ceefax ceased its service of news, sport and entertainment when analogue signals were switched off in 2012. However, the Red Button text service continued alongside video content, such as additional tennis coverage from Wimbledon and live stages from Glastonbury.
A BBC spokesperson said: From early 2020, viewers will no longer be able to access text-based BBC News and BBC Sport content by pressing red.
“It’s always a difficult decision to reduce services, and we don’t take decisions like this lightly, but we have taken it because we have to balance the resources needed to maintain and develop this service with the need to update our systems to give people even better internet-based services.”