Electra was America's answer to the British Ceefax or ORACLE systems, providing news headlines, weather, entertainment/lifestyle info, and other information.

The service was originally structured with hard news occupying the first 65 pages; the remainder was used for non-news sections, including TV listings and children's content.

[10][11] After beginning test broadcasts over WKRC in July 1982 (with a demonstration in November via the VBI of WAVY-TV in Norfolk, VA),[12] Taft announced plans to partner with Zenith in January 1983, agreeing to a five-year deal in hopes of persuading other television stations and manufacturers to use the WST system.

[13] The service officially debuted in July 1983, with Zenith stocking their teletext decoders (at a price of $300) in Cincinnati-area retailers and rolling out a mobile van unit to demonstrate Electra to interested consumers.

[18][19] At the same time, Zenith—which had failed to sell many teletext decoders due to their pricing, with Zenith's VP of marketing Bruce Huber quoted as saying "[we only sold a] few dozen.

An additional duo of services, Viewdata and Infovizion, were created by WHA-TV in Madison, WI and carried nationally by the Discovery Channel in the late 1980s.