Home

Teletext is a medium where encoded pages of information are broadcast alongside a television programme, and can be decoded on-screen by the viewer at the touch of a button.  Developed in the UK in the early 1970s, the last British teletext service was discontinued in the mid-2010s but teletext is still used in many countries around the world.

Once broadcast, teletext was generally overwritten on the server and the archive status of teletext pages is patchy at best, with (at least in the UK) only a few examples of pages saved by the broadcasters and some pages saved by the public using PC decoder cards.

This website covers efforts to recover teletext pages from television programmes recorded on regular domestic videotape and other methods.

Tape donation and loans

The Teletext Archaeologist archive consists of pages ranging from 1976 until 2018 and is continually expanding.

In particular, we are looking for:

  • Video tape recorded between 1974 and 1980
  • BBC1 before 1984
  • BBC2 until December 1989
  • ITV before 1984
  • Channel Four and S4C, from any era
  • Paramount Comedy Channel recordings

…can you help to plug the gaps?

First-generation copies are best – copies do blur the teletext signals recorded on the tapes.  But if you don’t want to part with original tapes then a good quality dub can still be useful as long as it hasn’t been through a time-base corrector – these can overwrite the teletext data with their own signals.  Please do get in touch via the contact section below!

Bluesky Latest

The latest curated finds are shared primarily on Bluesky – here are the latest posts:

The Teletext Archaeologist

The Teletext Archaeologist

@ttxarchaeologist.bsky.social

Jason Robertson (@jaseinblack.bsky.social) presents a curated selection of teletext pages recovered from videotape. Also on Mastodon at @grim_fandango@mas.to and Facebook www.facebook.com/teletextarchaeologist

1,345 posts 652 followers 72 following
A new service has been recovered by TesTVWhirl: Yorkshire from 19 April 1991 13:20

www.teletextarchive.com/Pages/List/3362
0 0 0
A new service has been recovered by John Aspinall: Channel Four from 19 April 1991 18:30

www.teletextarchive.com/Pages/List/3363
0 0 0
A new service has been recovered by John Aspinall: Channel Four from 18 April 1992 2024:31

www.teletextarchive.com/Pages/List/3361
0 0 3
For a long time it was only possible to recover teletext on Linux - now you can do it on a Windows laptop! Get more information and download VBI Recorder for nothing at teletextarchaeologist.org/software - but remember to upload your recoveries to www.teletextarchive.com after 🙂
0 2 7
For a long time it was only possible to recover teletext on Linux - now you can do it on a Windows laptop! Get more information and download VBI Recorder for nothing at teletextarchaeologist.org/software - but remember to upload your recoveries to www.teletextarchive.com after 🙂
0 2 7
A new service has been recovered by Tomsonic41: Channel Four from 17 April 1989 1324:30

www.teletextarchive.com/Pages/List/3359
0 0 0
A new service has been recovered by Tomsonic41: Channel Four from 17 April 1989 1324:30

www.teletextarchive.com/Pages/List/3359
0 0 0
A new service has been recovered by mdeplo: Italia 1 from 04 October 2003 2124:10

www.teletextarchive.com/Pages/List/3358
0 0 1
Looks like images are back in business, so our new CEEFAUXs continue with the perfect in-flight movie (£15 to activate your screen, £5 to skip adverts, £7.50 for headphones)
3 25 98

Blog

Archive Launched!

EXCITING NEWS! The Teletext Archive is launched – browse teletext services through your web browser, whether desktop, tablet or phone. You can do text searches, search by broadcaster and/or date, or just mooch around! https://archive.teletextarchaeologist.org

Interview on The Retro Hour podcast

Great to speak to Dan and Ravi from the Retro Hour podcast about all things teletext! Please give it a listen and subscribe, it’s a very professionally produced show. https://theretrohour.com/teletext-archaeologist-ep147-2/

The Archive

The site now has a list of the services recovered so far, over 1200 teletext services from 1976-2016.  Scroll though at your peril here: https://teletextarchaeologist.org/the-archive/