Edit: I use Teletext here when I actually meant the BBCs DVB version. We would still internally refer to it as Teletext.
I worked on the infrastructure for Teletext at the BBC as late as 2018. We were charged with modernising the infrastructure for it so that in the future it'd be easier to deploy, and easier to Debug and modify in the future.
As far as I know the service that ran Teletext is still running to this day. The Carousel still gets sent out. I know there was discussion of killing off the data service, but I'm not sure if this ever actually got killed.
It should be noted that the Ceefax and Teletext of the 90s was replaced with a much more modern "Red Button" that ran into the 2000s. If Red Button still runs today, which by all accounts it might, it'll look vastly different than in this article. Much more like the following: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/BBC_Red_Butto... - Some of the mechanisms (Carousels, etc) are similar.
Regardless of whether or not it did this application will still be running. The Teletext infrastructure was used to also send out things like "Watch on iPlayer" for Internet Connected TVs that were not currently connected to the internet. It formed an important part of the marketing for HBBTV, of which the BBC helped form the standard.
I only worked on this project for 6 months, but it was one of the most interesting projects I have worked on. It was myself and another developer, and it was completed and deployed. A lot of code I wrote now sends out these packets to millions of homes in the UK.
Having to learn the low-level packet structure of DSMCC, and being able to efficiently pack these and send them out to multiple broadcast towers was incredible.
I will say this. One of the big discussions from our team during this time was how poor a decision it would be to turn off the Data Service. The costs of this service are negligible. It is very efficiently ran. The broadcasting towers are needed for other services, and it is a single Java Application, and some hosted services that, again, are ran for other purposes too.
However, for a lot of our more elderly users, this was a way to get them good quality news without having them rely on things like the Daily Mail. It served a public good, regardless of how little it was used. It is a one way service, a carousel of data, so we did not have good metrics on it's use.
It was to try to encourage users to move to Hbbtv, which of course someone like my Grandma would never move to.
It was a decision entirely driven by "Sign In" metrics (that's still in place). It's a prime example of Goodhart's Law, which apparently no product owner in the BBC has ever heard of.
I worked on the infrastructure for Teletext at the BBC as late as 2018. We were charged with modernising the infrastructure for it so that in the future it'd be easier to deploy, and easier to Debug and modify in the future.
As far as I know the service that ran Teletext is still running to this day. The Carousel still gets sent out. I know there was discussion of killing off the data service, but I'm not sure if this ever actually got killed.
It should be noted that the Ceefax and Teletext of the 90s was replaced with a much more modern "Red Button" that ran into the 2000s. If Red Button still runs today, which by all accounts it might, it'll look vastly different than in this article. Much more like the following: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/BBC_Red_Butto... - Some of the mechanisms (Carousels, etc) are similar.
Regardless of whether or not it did this application will still be running. The Teletext infrastructure was used to also send out things like "Watch on iPlayer" for Internet Connected TVs that were not currently connected to the internet. It formed an important part of the marketing for HBBTV, of which the BBC helped form the standard.
I only worked on this project for 6 months, but it was one of the most interesting projects I have worked on. It was myself and another developer, and it was completed and deployed. A lot of code I wrote now sends out these packets to millions of homes in the UK.
Having to learn the low-level packet structure of DSMCC, and being able to efficiently pack these and send them out to multiple broadcast towers was incredible.
I will say this. One of the big discussions from our team during this time was how poor a decision it would be to turn off the Data Service. The costs of this service are negligible. It is very efficiently ran. The broadcasting towers are needed for other services, and it is a single Java Application, and some hosted services that, again, are ran for other purposes too.
However, for a lot of our more elderly users, this was a way to get them good quality news without having them rely on things like the Daily Mail. It served a public good, regardless of how little it was used. It is a one way service, a carousel of data, so we did not have good metrics on it's use.
It was to try to encourage users to move to Hbbtv, which of course someone like my Grandma would never move to.
If you're interesting in learning more about how Teletext works I used this resource extensively during my time at the BBC. https://www.tvwithoutborders.com/tutorials/dtv_intro/how-to-...