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Free-to-air
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Free-to-air (FTA) television (TV) and radio broadcasts are sent unencrypted and may be received via any suitable receiver:
Free-to-view (FTV) is, generally, available without subscription but is digitally encrypted and may be restricted geographically. Neither of these is pay-TV, which is an encrypted subscription (or pay-per-view) service.
FTA is sometimes delivered by satellite television, but in various parts of the world free-to-air television channels are broadcast unencrypted on UHF or VHF bands.
Although these channels are described as free, in some cases the viewer does in fact pay for them.
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Free-to-air (FTA) television (TV) and radio broadcasts are sent unencrypted and may be received via any suitable receiver:
Free-to-view (FTV) is, generally, available without subscription but is digitally encrypted and may be restricted geographically. Neither of these is pay-TV, which is an encrypted subscription (or pay-per-view) service.
FTA is sometimes delivered by satellite television, but in various parts of the world free-to-air television channels are broadcast unencrypted on UHF or VHF bands.
Although these channels are described as free, in some cases the viewer does in fact pay for them. Some are paid directly by payment of a licence fee (as in the case of the BBC) or voluntary donation (in the case of educational broadcasters like PBS), others indirectly by paying for consumer products and services where part of the cost goes toward television advertising and sponsorship (in the case of Japanese television broadcasters like TV Asahi and TV Tokyo which relies on sponsorship heavily, similar to Philippine Television like ABS-CBN, and GMA). One further variation is in Canada, where the CBC Television/Télévision de Radio-Canada network is partly funded by taxpayer dollars, and otherwise supports itself with commercial advertising revenues as it competes with other free over-the-air commercial networks.
Free-to-air is often used for international broadcasting, making it something of a video equivalent to shortwave radio.
Most authorized FTA retailers list free to air channel guides and content available in North America for free to air use.
Australia
Australia has 6 free-to-air networks, ABC, Seven Network, Nine Network, Network Ten, SBS, and the Community television channels. These networks broadcast to major metropolitan areas, while various regional affiliates cover rural areas.
Australia's two main government-owned TV channels, ABC and SBS, along with the digital-only multichannels ABC2 and the SBS World News Channel, are both available free-to-air on the Optus D1 satellite. Viewers in remote parts of Australia can also access Seven Central and Imparja Television, or WIN WA and GWN in Western Australia, through the free-to-view Optus Aurora service.
Other satellite-only channels such as NITV, TVSN, Expo, Press TV and Al Jazeera English are available free-to-air on various satellites.
Europe
European countries have a tradition of most television services being free to air. Germany, in particular, receives in excess of 100 digital TV channels free to air, including MTV (which remains encrypted for much of Europe). Approximately half of the television channels on Astra's 19.2° east and 28.2° east satellite positions, and Eutelsat's Hot Bird (13°E) are free-to-air.
In Austria, the main national networks which broadcast via satellite are encrypted for copyright reasons, but there are no subscriptions. Instead, almost every receiver sold in Austria is equipped with a standardized decryption device which allows to watch the Austrian channels without any ongoing cost, so Austrian channels are encrypted in order to respect all copyright issues but are still free to watch. Legally, it is a copyright offence to export the decryption cards to neighbouring countries in order to watch Austrian TV there.
Nevertheless, all regional or smaller channels from Austria are transmitted free-to-air via satellite and the national public broadcaster ORF offers a special free-to-air channel which airs selected programming without copyright issues via satellite all over Europe.
As Germany and Austria speak the same language and use the same satellite, Austrian viewers are able to receive about 120 free German-speaking channels from both countries.
In general, all satellite radio in Europe is free to air, but the more conventional broadcast systems in use mean that XM and Sirius style in-car reception is not possible.
A number of European channels which one might expect to transmit in free-to-air - including many countries' national terrestrial broadcasters - do not do so for copyright reasons. Rights to purchase programmes for free-to-air broadcast are often higher in price than for encrypted broadcasts. However, these channels usually provide a scheme to offer free, but encrypted, viewing with free-to-view broadcasts. The UK's Channel Five, certain programming on Italy's RAI, and the majority of Dutch channels are covered by such schemes (although in the case of RAI some programming is transmitted without encryption where there are no copyright issues).
The Republic of Ireland's TV broadcasters are encrypted exclusively for BSkyB subscribers in Ireland. These channels are not even Free to View and require a Sky subscription. RTÉ state that this is to protect their broadcast rights for sports and imported programming but as RTÉ will not even consider a Free to View scheme for their channels there is speculation that RTÉ are restricted by a secret deal with Sky for the conditional free carraige of their channels on the Sky platform.
Cable and satellite distribution allows many more channels to carry sports, movies and specialist channels which are not broadcast as FTA. The viewing figures for these channels is much lower than the FTA channels.
New Zealand
The national networks, Television New Zealand TV ONE and TV2, and Maori Television are free-to-air analog signals. Additionally, satellite reception is available on Optus D1 - branded Freeview. A new Channel - NTVNZ6 was introduced which will only be available on Freeview. A broadcast of parliament and a number of regional channels are also available. A Digital Terrestrial version of Freeview was launched in 2008, which, unlike the analog and satellite options, supports high definition broadcasts.
North America
There are a number of competing systems in use, with early adopters having used C-band satellite dishes of several feet in diameter to receive signals which were originally analogue microwaves, and then digital microwave using the 3.9-4.2 GHz band. Today, in the 11.7-12.2 GHz Ku band, which enables the use of under one-meter dishes, with most often the DVB-S standard, FTA can be used from apartment balconies.
The most common North American sources for free-to-air DVB satellite television are:
- Ethnic-language broadcasters such as GlobeCast World TV on Galaxy 25 (97°W)
- Christian broadcasters promoted by Glorystar & Spiritcast Satellite Systems TV on Galaxy 25 (97°W)
- Individual affiliates of various US terrestrial TV networks, including Equity Broadcasting stations on Galaxy 18 (123°W, Ku-band) and Galaxy 3C (95°W, C-band). These are primarily English language or Spanish language stations serving various local markets.
- Public educational broadcasters including PBS on AMC 3 (87°W) - PBS was moved to a new satellite AMC 21 (125°W) in October 2008
- NASA TV Multichannel Broadcast on AMC 6 (72°W)
Most of these signals are carried by US satellites. There is little or no free Canadian DVB-S content available to users of medium-size dishes as much of the available Ku-band satellite bandwidth is occupied by pay-TV operators Star Choice and Bell TV, although the large style dish (over 3 feet) does have a few choices. FTA signals may be scattered across multiple satellites, requiring a motor or multiple LNBfs to receive everything.
The largest groups of end-users for Ku-band free-to-air signals were initially the ethnic-language communities, as often free ethnic-language programming would be sponsored by Multilingual American Communities and their broadcasters. Depending on language and origin of the individual signals, North American ethnic-language TV is a mix of pay-TV, free-to-air and DBS operations. Today, many American broadcasters send a multitude of programming channels in many languages, spanning many new channels, so they can get National support, which ultimately leads to carriage by cable systems, to additionally support the high costs of broadcasting signals in this way.
Nonetheless, free-to-air satellite TV is a viable addition to any home video system, not only for the reception of specialised content but also for use in locations where terrestrial ATSC over-the-air reception is incomplete and additional channels are desired.
South Asia
Around 50 FTA television channels are broadcast from three transponders on the INSAT-4B satellite covering India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and parts of Afghanistan, China, and Myanmar. In India, the channels are marketed as DD Direct Plus by Doordarshan, India's national broadcaster.
South Korea
In Korea, KBS, MBC (2 main public broadcaster, such as the ARD and ZDF of Germany), SBS (privately owned, but for free to viewers), and EBS (including both TV and Radio) are the free-to-air broadcasting stations.
They dominate more than 80% of advertisement profits, according to the recent survey from the agency .
Due to the recent government's decision, Digital TV service for all free-to-air network will be scheduled before the year 2012, following at the end of analogue-based current broadcast.
See also
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