Abstract: At least two television reception tuners are used in a viewing center system, one for the television signals and the other for supplementary information transmitted during the blanking intervals and separated in the reception center by a data separation stage. A programmable control stage including a microprocessor accepts information not only from the data separator, but also from a manual remote control input device and from a timing control stage. A signal source switching unit for both the audio part and the composite video part of television signals is controlled by the microprocessor and interconnects signal sources including the tuners and auxiliary equipment, such as recording devices, a local camera, television games, and so on, with audio and video output devices. A digital data bus provides control to the various input and output devices.