ORACLE (teletext)

ORACLE (from "Optional Reception of Announcements by Coded Line Electronics") was a commercial teletext service first broadcast on the ITV network in 1975 and later additionally on Channel 4 and S4C in the United Kingdom from 1982. The service ceased on both channels at 23:59 UTC on 31 December 1992, when it was replaced by Teletext Ltd.

It was developed by the Independent Broadcasting Authority's engineering division. The first demonstration of broadcast teletext anywhere in the world was a 50-page test version of ORACLE to an invited audience, from the IBA's Crystal Palace transmitter on 9 April 1973.

Despite beating the BBC to an actual broadcast demonstration (the BBC had demonstrated Ceefax in 1972 but only via a wired connection between decoder and computer), ORACLE's experimental broadcast service did not begin until 30 June 1975, while Ceefax began on 23 September 1974 following occasional test broadcasts from 1973-74 using dummy pages.

Although it is frequently cited that ORACLE "launched" in 1978, it was regularly broadcast from 1975 and neither it nor Ceefax ever received a formal public launch. Both began as low-key experimental services and grew slowly. There was never an official public declaration that either service had actually "launched", and both were still being described in media reports as being "experimental" as late as August 1977, although eventually the word "experimental" was dropped from reports relating to them.

ITV Oracle made the world's first telesoftware broadcast in February 1977^{[citation needed]} and this led to a working demonstration of telesoftware at the 1978 International Broadcasting Convention^{[citation needed]}.

From October 1977 to April 1978, an industrial dispute meant that ORACLE was blacked out nationally. From 1975 until 1977, ORACLE had operated for 12.5 hours a day Monday to Friday. A planned extension of its operating hours to cover the weekend prompted engineering staff at LWT, the national origination point for ORACLE, to request more money for the additional duties; this was refused, leading to the staff refusing to maintain the equipment during the week. A test page was broadcast instead.

ORACLE was launched as a new advertising medium on 1 September 1981 with 180,000 teletext sets in the country. By the following year, there were then 450,000 sets in the UK and that number was projected to rise to nearly three million at the end of 1985 and confident predictions of advertising revenues as high as $90 million (£50 million).

ORACLE moved away from being an experimental engineering department and more towards being a content provider. Under the original plans for the ITV franchise renewal, they were to have been scrapped at the end of 1992 and the few scan lines they used given to the highest bidder. ORACLE successfully campaigned for the creation of a franchise for the teletext service on ITV and Channel 4, only to find themselves outbid by Teletext Ltd., a consortium originally comprising Associated Newspapers, Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. and Media Ventures International, who started broadcasting at midnight on New Year's Day 1993.