I first noticed this on my TV a few years ago (If it's the same thing I think you're talking about). I was surprised that my TV had an INFO button and could display the station name and Program name. I'm pretty sure all this data is sent in the bottom (or top?) few lines of the TV data. Time codes and Text can be sent. Recent VCR's can set their clock via this signal, but in the US, I haven't seen many stations that broadcast time. For the most part, all the PBS stations do, so some VCR's tell you to change the channel to PBS before auto-setting the clock.