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ORACLE

First air date	9 April 1973 (world's first live teletext broadcast)
Availability	United Kingdom
Area	United Kingdom
Owner	ITV
Dissolved	31 December 1992
Replaced by	Teletext Ltd.

ORACLE (from "OptionalReception ofAnnouncements byCodedLineElectronics") was a commercialteletext service first broadcast on theITV network in 1975 and later additionally onChannel 4 andS4C in theUnited Kingdom from 1982. The service ceased on both channels at 23:59 UTC on 31 December 1992, when it was replaced byTeletext Ltd.

It was developed by theIndependent 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'sCrystal 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^[1], while Ceefax began on 23 September 1974 following occasional test broadcasts from 1973-74 using dummy pages.^[2]

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^[3], although eventually the word "experimental" was dropped from reports relating to them.

ITV Oracle made the world's firsttelesoftware broadcast in February 1977^{[citation needed]} and this led to a working demonstration oftelesoftware 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 atLWT, 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.^[4]

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).^[5][6]

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 fewscan 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 byTeletext Ltd., a consortium originally comprisingAssociated Newspapers,Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. and Media Ventures International, who started broadcasting at midnight on New Year's Day 1993.

From early 1983 until its demise on 31 December 1992, ORACLE pages were broadcast in vision during downtime, mostly onChannel 4, although pages were shown during the night from 1986, with some regions showing pages nightly and others only airing them for a brief period in 1987.

Shown between 1983 and January 1997, 4-Tel on View was a magazine featuring previews of the day's Channel 4's programmes as well as back-up information and other features, such as the adventures of a dog called 4-T, from Channel 4's own "4-Tel" teletext service. The transmissions were especially notable from 1986 when animated graphics were introduced. Although the service was transmitted alongside Oracle on Channel 4, 4-Tel was editorially and legally separate, and operated for Channel 4 by Intelfax Ltd.

From 1983 until the start of Channel 4's breakfast television service in April 1989, the 4-Tel magazine ran for 15 minutes and was repeated several times each day^[7] with transmissions airing at increasingly early times of the day as Channel 4 expanded its broadcast hours. Following the start of breakfast television, however, 4-Tel on View was shown in a single block, initially 40 minutes in length, before the start of programmes.^[8] After ORACLE lost its franchise on 31 December 1992, 4-Tel on View continued to be shown and from 1 January 1993 until Channel 4 started 24-hour broadcasting in January 1997, 4-Tel on View was generally shown throughout Channel 4's entire closedown period.^[9][10]

Between 1983 and 1989, Channel 4 broadcast pages from the ORACLE service on air. Shown in 15-minute bursts, and alternating with 4-Tel on View and showings of theETP-1 testcard, the pages were seen during the day when Channel 4 was not broadcasting actual programmes. Initially, the pages shown were from one aspect of the ORACLE service with the subject matter changing every so often.^[7] but from September 1987,Oracle on View became a news service, adopting this format at the same time that Channel 4 expanded its broadcast hours to accommodate the transfer ofITV Schools to Channel 4.^[11] Oracle on View ended on 31 March 1989, three days before Channel 4 started broadcasting breakfast television.

Between the late 1980s and mid 1990s, many ITV companies broadcast job vacancies and related information during overnight periods and the service was provided by broadcasting the relevant ORACLE page in-vision.Central was the first company to do this, beginning in April 1986^[12] withYorkshire following in January 1987. Initially, the pages were broadcast for an hour after the end of regular programming but from April 1987, Central broadcastJobfinder throughout their overnight downtime^[13] withTyne Tees doing the same from November 1987. By late 1988, all of ITV was broadcasting a24-hour service and many other companies, including Granada, HTV and TSW, introduced their ownJobfinder service at this point, broadcasting the pages between 4am and 5am, later 4:30am to 5:30am. By the late-1990s, the vacancies were no longer transmitted in a teletext format and by the mid-2000s all of theJobfinder services had ended, with Yorkshire being the last region to end itsJobfinder programme.

For a short period in 1987, prior to the start of 24-hour broadcasting onITV, a selection of teletext pages were broadcast in-vision prior to the start ofTV-am. These pages mostly consisted of news and information about TV-am.

ORACLE began to disappear at 23:31:09 on 31 December 1992, with the outer border of pixels turning black: this process continued until 23:55:55 when only a white square was left, with the text "ORACLE gone, 1978–1992". It was then replaced by the service fromTeletext Ltd. ORACLE did not carry television listings beyond its midnight closing time on New Year's Eve 1992. By00:06:38 GMT, Teletext was fully operational.^[14]

• 
  Teletext New Year's Day 1989
• 
  The last television listings on ORACLE on its closing day. Note the 00:00 listing titled "THE END OF ORACLE: NOW THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS!", seemingly a jab against Teletext, their successors.^[14]

• Park Avenue, a teletext based soap which appeared on ORACLE for several years written by Robbie Burns and Steve Regan.
• Timeline of teletext in the UK

• Information and screenshots of Oracle from mb21
• Debbie's Diary: "a bit like Belle de Jour but without the sauce" (The Guardian)
• A full capture of Oracle from the last day of service.

• ITV franchisees
• Teletext
• 1978 in British television
• 1978 establishments in the United Kingdom
• 1992 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
• History of telecommunications in the United Kingdom

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