Extending the Aerial

Beyond their roles of broadcasting programmed content into the homes of people around the country, Britain’s British Broadcasting Corporation and Independent Television stations delivered additional content via the home television set. This article will explore the British histories of Teletext and telesoftware in a wider context of microprocessing developments during the late 1970s and early 1980s through a media archaeological framework of their terminology and traits. Situating these developments in the industrial and political climates of the 1970s, the article will outline an alternative history of networks through the aerial, as the ‘hidden lines’ of information become exposed once again.