BBC Қызыл Батырмасы: Интерактивті Теледидар Қызметі

Interactive television service

BBC Red Button is a brand used for digital interactive television services provided by the BBC, and broadcast in the United Kingdom. The services replaced Ceefax, the BBC's analogue teletext service. BBC Red Button's text services were due to close on 30 January 2020, but the switch off was suspended on 29 January 2020 following protests.

The service was launched on 23 September 1999 as BBC Text. It was relaunched in November 2001 under the BBCi brand and operated under this name until late 2008, when it was rebranded as BBC Red Button. The "red button" name refers to the common interface on remote controls for digital televisions and set top boxes, a red push button that launches digital teletext services. Although initially marketed as a spectacular new form of television, by 2008 this had given way to positioning interactive television as 'everyday'. This was due in part to the institutional landscape of television in the UK. In September 2009, the BBC celebrated 10 years of the digital interactive TV service.

BBC Text originally launched on digital terrestrial services on 23 September 1999, and was later introduced on satellite and cable platforms. In the first phase, the service was created using content migrated from the existing analogue teletext service, Ceefax. A digital text service had been available since the launch of digital terrestrial television in November 1998, but the BBC Text service was not publicly launched until November 1999, due to a lack of availability of compatible set top boxes. BBC Text was considerably more advanced than Ceefax, in that it offered a richer visual interface, with the possibility of photographic images and designed graphics (as opposed to Ceefax graphics which were composed of simple blocks of colour). BBC Text also enabled channel association, the ability for the user to retain their selected television channel visible in one section of the screen whilst viewing the text service, in contrast to Ceefax, which could only be viewed as a full screen display, or as a semitransparent overlay (i. e. opaque blocks of colour on top of the television channel, with the black background now transparent; not 'translucent blocks of colour with a translucent black background') above the television picture. The original text service had no return path, this being made available in later phases. BBC Text pioneered an early form of "on demand" interactive television, called Enhanced TV. During the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, the BBC presented a service that allowed viewers to select a video stream of different matches, and access additional information such as player profiles, scores and interactive quizzes. Although the experimental service was publicly available, there were no digital set top boxes or receivers available on the market that could decode the signal, and the service was presented to the public only via BBC demonstrations using prototype receivers. According to the BBC, the "i" in BBCi stood for "interactivity" as well as "innovation". The various services all took on a common interface device, an "i bar" branded with the BBCi logo, which sought to emphasise the brand across different technologies by providing similar navigation. For example, the BBC website, which had previously been called BBC Online, took on the BBCi brand from 2001, displaying an i bar across the top of every page, offering a category based navigation: Categories, TV, Radio, Communicate, Where I Live, A Z Index, and a search. Similarly, BBC interactive television services all offered a horizontal i bar along the bottom of television screens, with four colour coded interactions linked to the four colour buttons on TV remote controls. After three years of consistent use across different platforms, the BBC began to drop the BBCi brand gradually; on 6 May 2004, the BBC website was renamed bbc. co. uk, after the main URL used to access the site. Interactive TV services continued under the BBCi brand until late 2008.

In June 2013, a HD version of BBC Red Button was launched for the summertime. It closed on 25 November 2013 after the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. It returned each year along with the other BBC Red Button channels as a temporary channel for the duration of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. On 26 March 2018, CBBC HD began its downtime and the relaunch of BBC Red Button HD took place to cover the 2018 Commonwealth Games. It was added on Sky on channel 981 and Freeview channel 602 on 3 April 2018 and closed on 16 April 2018 after the Games had concluded. Later in 2021, it was originally supposed to be closed on the end of Wimbledon but was kept on air for the 2020 Olympics. On 15 February 2023, as part of the BBC's plan to upgrade all of its channels to high definition as standard, the high definition video feed of BBC Red Button was made the default on all television platforms, replacing the long standing "standard definition" feed which was used outside of significant sporting events.

From 2008, the BBC gradually began to drop the BBCi name from its digital interactive TV services also, replacing it with the name BBC Red Button. The BBCi logo continued in on screen presentation for some time.

BBC Connected Red Button launched in December 2012 on Virgin TiVo and on some Freeview and Freesat 'Smart TVs' in December 2013. The service is a composite IP and broadcast service and may be the future of Red Button on internet connected televisions.

The service was renamed BBC Red Button+ in April 2015. It launched with an updated brand.

After nearly 21 years of service, the BBC announced in 2019 that due to financial cuts, the text services on Red Button on all platforms would be removed from 30 January 2020. The video services, used during events like Wimbledon and the Olympic Games, however, would continue. On 29 January 2020, the BBC announced their suspension of the switch off due to protests, one day before the service was due to have started being phased out. This announcement comes following a petition, organised by the National Federation of the Blind of the UK (NFBUK), which was submitted to the BBC and Downing Street. Additional online streams could also be accessed through the internet connected BBC Red Button+. 2016 Olympics: eight red button video streams were broadcast to all platforms during the 2016 Olympics. This was in addition to BBC Four continually broadcasting Olympic coverage and either BBC One or BBC Two broadcasting main coverage during the course of the each day. The Championships, Wimbledon: six additional channels were provided for a variety of outer courts. Red Button 1 was duplicated in high definition, with RB 2 to RB 6 only in standard definition. The 2022 edition of the tournament was the last to offer this functionality. As of 2023, the BBC will no longer be providing additional Red Button streams for any events. Instead, it will be directing viewers to watch additional feeds via the BBC iPlayer. 2023 Wimbledon was the first major tournament not to provide any additional feeds on linear television. BBC Red Button 1 hd (originally launched as sd only) is a channel on Freeview, Freesat, Sky and Virgin Media, which showcases many live events, like live music (especially from BBC Radio live shows), sports such as football and rugby, it also carries an extended version of Final Score in start and finish times, which carries usually more analysis of the matches they are following. When the BBC announced that all their SD channels on satellite were to close, BBC Red Button 1 became permanently HD for the first time in its history (was sometimes in HD for certain events like Wimbledon) and Virgin Media followed up their closures of the BBC's SD channels on their service by adding BBC Red Button 1 HD and removing the SD version.

The service was initially compatible with ONdigital and ITV Digital boxes, though loading speeds were slower than newer Freeview boxes. Page numbers were introduced in 2004 to aid navigation, with 3 digit page numbers matching with those of the analogue Ceefax in 2006. Pages exclusive to digital are given a four digit number. An index navigation screen was also introduced, replacing the previous BBCi Menu. The Teletext service from the UK commercial broadcasters had stopped supporting the old boxes in 2005. As of 2010, the ONdigital boxes only load pages 100 and 199 and some interactive services that use channel 301, if any other page is loaded it exits the service. Usage of these boxes dwindled further as technology developed. They used "original" technology and as such were not upgradable. Following each regional changeover to full digital TV broadcasting, the remaining units are no longer of use, as they do not support the "8K mode" for DVB T introduced across the UK as part of the digital switchover.