Carlton SpotPlus+ / CITV Interactive

Just come across the following video and noticed something very interesting right at the start of the video.



An advertisement under 'Carlton SpotPlus+' for 'CITV Interactive'.

It says to enter a certain VideoPlus code for your VCR to record. Or you could manually set your VCR to record for 10 minutes from 05.55.

What was this? Was it just a short segment for CITV in the early hours? Was it just broadcast in the Carlton region hence the initial Carlton branding? Were there more of these for other programmes?

And did it really eat into GMTV time or was it just a buffer to ensure it recorded the full segment?

I’ve no idea, but wonder if it was a set timed data burst that they seemed to use a lot in the early 90s, highlighting shows, etc.

I saw a video on YouTube about databursts somewhere.

Didn't How 2 use to have one at the end of its show?

‘Bad Influence’ certainly did. I remember being annoyed that I couldn’t read it because the freeze frame on our VCR wasn’t very good.

Extracts of a Bad Influence datablast featured in this Tom Scott video, complete with modern day datablast:


The Old Skool Weekend repeated an episode of How 2 with a datablast. IIRC it actually went round twice during the credits and was probably full of out of date information

The last time I saw a datablast was during the BBC's 1999 Eclipse coverage. Even at the time it struck me as a weird way to impart information in an era where most households with children (who, lets face it, are the only lot likely to be interested in such a thing) had a computer with a CD ROM drive and a copy of Encarta or similar.

Never mind that, it was odd in an era where most people had Ceefax.

Actually, that's probably a few years before they became ubiquitous. I didn't have a PC until I was in college, I got an Education Maintenance Allowance that I saved up in order to buy a computer in 2001. They weren't cheap back then.

I had a library card.

I never had Ceefax but did have a PC with access to CD-ROMs - just had a very happy Google through some of the late-90s classics that I used to indulge in.

The Way Things Work or My First Amazing History Explorer anyone?

Perhaps I'm a little ahead of the curve, but I think by 1999 the likes of Tiny and Time would do a basic machine package for £800 or so. It'd be rubbish, but it would run Encarta. My family were too skint for that - but I had a handed down 486 machine which had an early CD-ROM drive and a copy of the Grolier encyclopedia.


Certainly once you include access at school and public libraries I think availability amongst children must have been pretty high at that point.