Premium television

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Premium television (sometimes pay television in North America) generally refers to a class of commercial-free television services which are available for subscription through cable and satellite television for fees much higher than traditional, packaged cable networks or specialty services.

Historically, premium services consisted of single feeds distributed on encrypted analog channels. Modern premium services, such as HBO and Showtime in the United States, The Movie Network, Movie Central and Super Écran in Canada, Sky Movies in the United Kingdom, Movie Network and Showtime Australia in Australia, Globo's Telecine in Brazil, Premiere, Kabel Digital and Arena in Germany, TV Cabo's Lusomundo's 6 movie channels and SportTV in Portugal, and Televisa's Cinecanal in Mexico have grown to include several "multiplex" channels, and in some cases a video-on-demand service, and are distributed via digital means. In most cases they show movies throughout the day, with occasional original series, sports events, and other specials. Pay per view provides similar material without subscription, usually at a higher premium.

Unlike other cable networks, premium services are almost always subscribed to individually, meaning that one can subscribe to HBO without subscribing to Showtime. (In Canada, there are slight modifications, as most providers include U.S. superstations with their main premium package by default.) However, subscribing to an "individual" service automatically includes access to all of that service's available multiplex channels and, in some cases, access to content via video-on-demand.

Due to their high subscription fees, premium television services are generally the most profitable services in their respective territories.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../p/r/e/Premium_television.html"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.