From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To comply with Wikipedia's quality standards, this article may need to be rewritten. Please help improve this article. The discussion page may contain suggestions.

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Premium television. (Discuss)

Pay television or Premium Television refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by both analogue and digital cable and satellite, but also increasingly by digital terrestrial methods. Some parts of the world, notably in France and the US, have also offered encrypted analog terrestrial signals, available for subscription.

Contents 1 Price 2 Distribution 3 Ambiguities 3.1 Pay-per-view 3.2 Free-to-view 4 See also

Pay television channels come in different price ranges. Many channels carrying advertising combine this income with a lower subscription fee. These are called "mini-pay" channels and are often sold as a part of a package with numerous similarly priced channels. Sometimes, the channels are also sold "à la carte", allowing the consumer to select which channels they subscribe to.

There are also premium television services which have a significantly higher price than the mini-pay channels, but they compensate for their higher price by carrying little or no advertising and also providing a higher quality output.

As advertising sales are sensitive to the business cycle, some broadcasters try to balance them with more stable income from subscriptions.

Pay television has become popular with cable and satellite television.

There have also been some subscription services on analogue terrestrial television, but free-to-air television dominated and scrambled services were rare. Canal+ has operated a national pay channel in the French terrestrial network since 1984 and will do so until the closedown of analogue television. Spanish Canal+ did also broadcast nationally between 1990-2005. Some US stations launched services such SuperTV, Wometco, Prism, SelecTV and ON-TV in the late '70s, but those services disappeared as they couldn't handle the competition from cable television.

In some countries, the launch of digital terrestrial television has meant that pay television has become increasingly popular in countries with regular antennas.

The major distributors of Pay Television in Australia are Foxtel, Optus Television and Austar, both of which provide Cable services in some Metropolitan areas, and Satellite for regional areas of the country.

Pay-per-view (PPV) services are similar to subscription-based pay TV services in that you must pay to have the broadcast decrypted for viewing, but usually only entail a one-off payment for a single or time-limited viewing.

"Free" variants are free-to-air (FTA) and free-to-view (FTV), however FTV services are normally encrypted and decryption cards either come as part of an initial subscription to a pay TV bouquet or can be purchased for a one-off cost.

Selective access of free content

• FTA and FTV systems may still have selective access. ABC Asia-Pacific is one example. This channel's content is free-to-air but NRL games are encrypted.

• Premium television - previously known as "pay television" in North America
• Pirate decryption