Electra (teletext)

Electra was a teletext service in the United States that was in operation from the early 1980s up until 1993, when it was shut down due to a lack of funding, and discontinuation of teletextapable television sets by the only US television manufacturer offering teletext capability at the time, Zenith. It was owned, operated and maintained by Cincinnati-based Taft Broadcasting (specifically at their flagship station, WKRC-TV, which had debuted the service in their area first) and Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Satellite Syndicated Systems (SSS), in cooperation with cable/satellite TV station Superstation WTBS (now TBS), who carried Electra's data on their vertical blanking interval.[1] The service was also available to C-band satellite dish users via the Galaxy 1 and Satcom 3R satellites.

Electra
Screenshot of Electra's front page from 1985.
DeveloperTaft Broadcasting
TypeTeletext
Launch date1981
Discontinued1993
Platform(s)World System Teletext
StatusDiscontinued

Electra was America's answer to the British Ceefax or ORACLE systems, providing news headlines, weather, entertainment/lifestyle info, and other information. Electra used the World System Teletext (WST) protocol, the same protocol used by Ceefax and ORACLE, as well as by other teletext services in the rest of the European continent.

Electra also carried another teletext service on its higher-numbered pages, a service called Tempo. Tempo mainly carried stock market quotes, sports and other miscellaneous information on its pages.

Electra was one of the very few American teletext services in operation. A few other services were offered by some large-market TV stations in the US throughout the 1980s, such as Metrotext from KTTV in Los Angeles and KeyFax from WFLD in Chicago.

At the time of Electra's closing in 1993, it was the only teletext service in the United States.

References
  1. Fantel, Hans (November 22, 1987). "Video; Teletext use is growing". The New York Times. p. 34. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
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