BBC suspends closure of Red Button text service after protests

Rebecca Speare-Cole29 January 2020

The BBC has suspended the closure of its Red Button text service after protests.

It comes a day before the service was due to start being phased out over the next few weeks.

The decision was made after a petition was handed to the BBC and Downing Street by the National Federation of the Blind of the UK.

MP ​Damian Collins has tweeted a letter from Tony Hall saying he would make a decision in the spring.

Red Button text, which enables headlines, football scores, weather and travel news to be read on TV sets, was launched in 1999, taking over as Ceefax was phased out.

Last year, a BBC spokesman said the decision to end the service had not been taken lightly.

"We have taken it because we have to balance the resources needed to maintain and develop this service with the need to update our systems to give people even better internet-based services," he added.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in