Slashdot Mirror
Ceefax Turns 30
VirtualUK writes "Ceefax, the text information service from the BBC turns 30 today (just 3 days after myself)!! For those not lucky enough to have seen what Ceefax is about, it is text information pages sent in out-of-band data space of TV transmissions in Great Britain. What started off as a subtitling project evolved into a service still used by over 20 million viewers a week even in the face of the Internet revolution. It just goes to show that for a lot of people, the best source of sport results, last minute holiday bargains and horoscopes is still just a click away on their TV remote."
It's called teletext here in the UK too. Ceefax is just the BBC's name for its teletext services.
All four terrestrial analogue broadcasters have teletext services and the hundreds of terrestrial/cable/satellite broadcasters have similar digital services too.
One interesting factoid about teletext is that, at one stage, over half the holidays in Britain were bought via teletext (ads on teletext, response by phone). Obviously, with the development of the Internet that's changed, but the teletext holiday market is still pretty big.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
It runs all the time on one of my desktops - IMHO it is the very best source of concise, up-to-date information.
Here are some dumps of the current BBC front pages, courtesy of alevtd and w3m (some stuff snipped to avoid slashdot "junk" lameness filter).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext
OK I'll bite.
It is true that we have to pay the Televison Licence every year and it's about £110-£120 (I have not checked). But look at all we get!
7 national, commercial free radio stations giving high quality music, spoken word, and live event output (like One Big Sunday if that's your bag or BBC Proms); 6 or so digital national commercial free TV channels with some pretty good original programming (and not so good too); loads of regional TV and Radio of similar quality; BBC Online; and, er, we gave the Yanks The Office, didn't we?
Sorry, I'm getting a lump in my throat here... Let me just step outside.
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
And here's how the money goes
How your licence is spent
Each household's colour TV licence cost £9.67 every month in 2003/2004. On average each month, this was how the BBC spent your money:
Average monthly licence fee spend
BBC One £3.37
BBC Two £1.45
Digital television channels £0.98
Transmission and collection costs £0.98
BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 and Five Live £0.99
Digital radio stations £0.08
Nations & English Regions television £0.90
Local radio £0.61
bbc.co.uk £0.31
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science