Pay television

Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel,[1][2][3][4] refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, but also increasingly via digital terrestrial, and streaming television. In the United States, subscription television began in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the form of encrypted analog over-the-air broadcast television which could be decrypted with special equipment. The concept rapidly expanded through the multi-channel transition and into the post-network era.[5] Other parts of the world beyond the United States, such as France and Latin America have also offered encrypted analog terrestrial signals available for subscription.

Not to be confused with pay-per-view.
This article is about television services in which rely on a subscription fee (which is paying) in order to be watched. For the forms of subscription TV services in which "pay television" is also sometimes used as a generalized term, see Multichannel television.

The term is most synonymous with premium entertainment services focused on films or general entertainment programming such as, in the United States, Cinemax, HBO, MGM+, Showtime, and Starz, but such services can also include those devoted to sports, as well as adult entertainment.

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This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Pay television, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.