Red Button Service to be dropped

[Black Hole]

News report this morning: BBC is to drop the Red Button Service as a cost cutting measure.

 

[cdmackay]

I heard about that second-hand; what wasn't clear, to me, was exactly what that meant?

Does this mean that they will not be offering "extra" channels during special events, e.g. sports? e.g. what some call the "red button channels"?

Or just losing a dynamic link to textual content?

 

[prpr]

It means the former and, I expect, not the latter, but nothing's ever clear until it is.

 

[Trev]

Presumably it means anything you get on the red button at present.

 

[Black Hole]

There is a cost in renting the transmission bandwidth for the red button video services, a cost in providing the services with video (even if most of the video does originate from existing material - an obvious exception being Springwatch Unsprung) and managing its broadcast, and a cost in curating the Red Button teletext-type services. Take your pick.

It seems to me we are better able to do without the teletext services than the video feeds - nothing on the teletext service can't be readily obtained by an Internet search from other sources.

 

[Luke]

Presumably it means anything you get on the red button at present.

Wh? The announcement only mentions Red Button services not Red Button and Red Button+ services.

 

[Luke]

It is just the Red Button services and NOT the Red Button+ Services.

"Exploring a phased exit from the broadcast Red Button service and focusing our interactive TV offer on connected televisions and iPlayer"
The word 'broadcast' gives it away and emphasised by "focusing our interactive TV offer on connected televisions ".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2015/bbc-savings

 

[cdmackay]

thanks all. Shame for people (like my Mum) who don't have "connected" televisions. And also rely on the (digital) text service for news, etc. Still, that's progress, apparently.

 

[Black Hole]

I don't think anyone is portraying this as progress, just a question of balancing the budget.

 

[Luke]

I don't think anyone is portraying this as progress, just a question of balancing the budget.

Yer what?
One year we have Red Button. A few years later we have Red Button+ but no Red Button. Hopefully the BBC have not just balanced the budget but also have evaluated that Red Button+ is on the whole worth the budget but Red Button isn't.