Free-to-air in the context of "TV listings"

Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna commonly referred to as a satellite dish and a low-noise block downconverter.

A satellite receiver decodes the desired television program for viewing on a television set. Receivers can be external set-top boxes, or a built-in television tuner. Satellite television provides a wide range of channels and services. It is usually the only television available in many remote geographic areas without terrestrial television or cable television service. Different receivers are required for the two types. Some transmissions and channels are unencrypted and therefore free-to-air, while many other channels are transmitted with encryption. Free-to-view channels are encrypted but not charged-for, while pay television requires the viewer to subscribe and pay a monthly fee to receive the programming.

Television broadcasts in the United Kingdom began in 1932, however, regular broadcasts would only begin four years later. Television began as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transmitted moving image in 1926. Currently, the United Kingdom has a collection of free-to-air, free-to-view and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channels for consumers as well as on-demand content. There are six main TV channel owners who are responsible for most material viewed.

There are 27,000 hours of domestic content produced a year, at a cost of £2.6 billion. Since 24 October 2012, all television broadcasts in the United Kingdom have been in a digital format, following the end of analogue transmissions in Northern Ireland. Digital content is delivered via terrestrial, satellite and cable, as well as over IP. As of 2003, 53.2% of households watch through terrestrial, 31.3% through satellite, and 15.6% through cable.

Mobile television is television watched on a small handheld or mobile device, typically developed for that purpose. It includes services delivered via mobile phone networks, received free-to-air via terrestrial television stations, or via satellite broadcast. Regular broadcast standards or special mobile TV transmission formats can be used. Additional features include downloading TV programs and podcasts from the Internet and storing programming for later viewing.

According to the Harvard Business Review, the growing adoption of smartphones allowed users to watch as much mobile video in three days of the 2010 Winter Olympics as they watched throughout the entire 2008 Summer Olympics, a five-fold increase. However, except in South Korea, consumer acceptance of broadcast mobile TV has been limited due to a lack of compatible devices.

Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded entirely by its commercial activities, including advertising. It began its transmission in 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in the United Kingdom. At the time, the only other channels were the licence-funded BBC1 and BBC2, and a single commercial broadcasting network, ITV.

Originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public corporation of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which was established in 1990 and came into operation in 1993. Until 2010, Channel 4 did not broadcast in Wales, but many of its programmes were re-broadcast there by the Welsh fourth channel S4C. In 2010, Channel 4 extended service into Wales and became a nationwide television channel. The network's headquarters are in London and Leeds, with creative hubs in Manchester, Glasgow and Bristol.

5 (formerly known as Channel 5 and Five) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Paramount Skydance's UK and Australia division. It was launched on 30 March 1997 to provide a fifth national terrestrial channel in the United Kingdom.

Channel 5 was renamed Five, from 16 September 2002 until 13 February 2011. Most of this was under the RTL Group's ownership with Richard Desmond purchasing the channel on 23 July 2010 and reverting the name change. On 1 May 2014, the channel was acquired by Viacom (now Paramount Global) for £450 million (US$759 million). Channel 5 was rebranded as 5 on 12 March 2025 along with its streaming service.

Cable News Network International or CNN International (CNNi, simply branded on-air as CNN) is an international television channel and website, owned by CNN Worldwide. CNN International carries news-related programming worldwide; it cooperates with sister network CNN's national and international news bureaus. Unlike its sister channel, CNN, a North American-only subscription service, CNN International is carried on a variety of TV platforms across the world, and broadcast from studios inside and outside the United States, in Atlanta, New York City, London, Mumbai, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi. In some countries, it is available as a free-to-air network. The service is aimed at the overseas market, similar to BBC News, France 24, CGTN, DW, RT, DD India, NHK World, TRT World or Al Jazeera English.

BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, primetime drama and entertainment, and live BBC Sport events.

The channel was launched on 2 November 1936 under the name BBC Television Service, which was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution. It was renamed BBC TV in 1960 and used this name until the launch of the second BBC channel, BBC Two, in 1964. The main channel then became known as BBC1. The channel adopted the current spelling of BBC One in 1997.