Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscription, other ongoing cost, or one-off fee (e.g., pay-per-view).
These carriers may be mandated (or OPT) in some geographies to deliver FTA channels even if a premium subscription is not present (providing the necessary equipment is still available), especially where FTA channels are expected to be used for emergency broadcasts, similar to the 1-1-2 (112) emergency service provided by mobile phone operators and manufacturers.
However, when television was finally introduced, there was only one channel with airtime divided evenly between English and Afrikaans, alternating between the two languages.
(Tanzania itself did not establish a television service until the early 1990s, similarly concerned about the expense and perceived threat to cultural norms.)
The Government, advised by SABC technicians, took the view that colour television would have to be available so as to avoid a costly migration from black-and-white broadcasting technology.
In 1985, a new service called TV4 was introduced, carrying sports and entertainment programming, using the channel shared by TV2 and TV3, which ended transmissions at 9:30 pm.
In 1986, the SABC's monopoly was challenged by the launch of a subscription-based service known as M-Net, backed by a consortium of newspaper publishers on 1 October.
As the state-controlled broadcaster, the SABC was accused of bias towards the apartheid regime, giving only limited coverage to opposition politicians.
The lack of FTA among public broadcasters are prevalent in countries whose broadcasters tend to use subtitles for foreign language programmes; although Spain's two public domestic channels, La Una and La Dos, are also encrypted despite dubbed foreign programmes being the norm in Spain.
In Austria, the main national networks broadcast free-to-view via satellite; however, all regional and some smaller channels are transmitted free-to-air, and the national public broadcaster, ORF, offers a special free-to-air channel which airs selected programming without (i.e. those 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 SiriusXM style in-car reception is not possible.
Various European countries broadcast a large number of channels via free-to-air terrestrial, generally as an analog PAL/SECAM transmission, digital DVB-T/T2 or a combination of the two.
Das Erste, ZDF, ZDFneo, ZDFinfo, 3sat, Arte, KiKA and Phoenix are available throughout the country, in addition to at least one region-dependent channel which is provided by the regional ARD member.
The informal term "council telly" is sometimes used for free-to-air television in the UK, evoking a basic service accessible to all.
Today, although large C-band dishes can still receive some content, the 11.7-12.2 GHz Ku band is also used.
The European-developed DVB-S and DVB-S2 standards are the most commonly used broadcast methods, with analog transmissions almost completely discontinued as of mid-2014.
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 Shaw Direct and Bell Satellite TV, although larger C-band dishes can pick up some content.
Instead, they are generally intended for reception by local television stations, cable system headends, or other commercial users.
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.
Viewers in remote parts of Australia are able to access many Australian free-to-air channels using the DVB-S2 Optus VAST service.