Talk:Free-to-air

Why so many bad useless channels on FTA?

It 's all religious programming and government channels. Who watches? no one. Potential government kickback subsidy program. --65.26.106.15 (talk) 07:18, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Untitled

I thought 'free-to-air' meant something like 'free-to-rebroadcast' What is the origin of this term, and what does 'air' mean? Morwen - Talk 15:10, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Early 1990's satellite television jargon, now mainstream, and being made more so by the new Freesat announcement in the UK today. "Air" refers to the tranmission method - unencrypted radio waves, be they UHF, DTT UHF or EHF satellite. --Kiand 15:13, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

This article is in drastic need of improvement BTW 220.253.15.7 12:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Seconded! For example, the line in the introduction "Most authorized FTA retailers list free to air channel guides and content available in North America for free to air use." is incomprehensible to me: what is an "authorized FTA retailer"? Who authorizes? And the term free-to-air definitely includes terrestrial in UK - in fact would be assumed by most to refer to terrestrial unless otherwise qualified, the term over-the-air not being used at all. G6JPG (talk) 06:07, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Free TV

HOw can they give TV for free??? Why doesnt everyone do it then?? Realg187 18:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Basically the vast majority of the programming is the following: foreign, religious, encrypted (no you cannot get HBO etc from it), or non profit/public.

That being said however if you combined a ku based system with a c band with some over the air HD you could probably get over 100 or so channels free.

FTA though is a hobby. The channels are under no legal obligation to provide service. To note there's also wild feeds that basically could be anything, it's uncensored live shots. Also is that programming would be on multiple satellites (it isn't fixed like direct tv or dish network) so you'd need either multiple dishes or a motorized dish.

I highly recommand seeing lyngsat.com as that sort of keeps track of things (but not feeds...when people post feeds they usually stop!) Anything in the red is for a cband, anything in the green is a ku. Yellow shows both...there's also the "footprint" which means what part of the world can get it. If the frequency is four digits it's a cband, if five it's a ku. To get a picture of what it sort of is like see http://www.lyngsat.com/ia5.html That satellite has tons of free channels but it's mostly from the middle east and in arabic. But this one here http://www.lyngsat.com/g10r.html has a number in English but mostly of local affliates of major networks.

How come there is no mention of the north american FTA receivers that are programmed to illigally receive Dish Network and Bell programing for free ? Adisor19 17:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC) Adi

Probably because that is an illegal subsect of the FTA culture. Most people who use FTA do it as a hobby. I often search for new sattelite feeds, to see what they are. Quite often the free ones are "shared feeds", and you will see things like live news remotes. At one time, a lot of syndicated shows (Jeopardy and Star Trek: TNG) were distributed in this way. But with the advent of DirecTV and DishNetwork, and scrambled channels, FTA has largely died off. There is the group that uses it as a way to "steal" signals, but it is rather complex, and not something that most laymen can do. Not to mention that at any time a new security algorythm could come out and make all of your hardware worthless. Mushrom 23:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

SO not all channels are there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Realg187 (talk • contribs) 19:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It depends on what sattelite you are getting the feed from. Most people nowadays buy the programmable FTA boxes, which can be programmed to steal Dish Network feeds. This is illegal, but they do get all Dish signals (for as long as the security algorythms are able to be hacked). But people with "Big Dish" systems normally use them to get free legal transmissions. There are hundreds of sattelites you can use FTA with, not just the Dish ones. And even Dish has some feeds that are unscrambled, and are available for anybody to watch legally. Mushrom 16:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

How can an article on FTA television centre on satellite telelvision with no mention of analogue terrestrial broadcasts? Moswt European countries are FTA terrestrial after all!

There does seem to be a fair amount of overlap between this article and FTA receiver (satellite) or over-the-air programming (terrestrial). Individual satellite programme availability is also somewhat of a moving target, at least in North America, as many individual channels go to incompatible formats, go to encryption or go dark. The supposed third-party software to decode pay-TV is largely dead, due to smart-card swaps by providers, although there is still one scheme (Internet Key Sharing) still extant. That much is addressed in the FTA receiver article but doesn't belong on this page as all of the programming which has been siphoned away by the pay-TV providers is by definition no longer FTA. In some cases, specific programmes which had been watched free terrestrially for years (such as the old Bugs Bunny cartoons) are no longer free as they've been siphoned away by the cartoon networks or other pay specialty channels. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 17:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The focus on satellite FTA in the North America section

The opening paragraph states, correctly:

Free-to-air (FTA) television (TV) and radio broadcasts are sent unencrypted and may be received via any suitable receiver.

Hence, ordinary terrestrial network television is FTA. Most sections of the article reflect this understanding. For instance, the Australian section includes the six terrestrial television networks as FTA, and the European section deals with the matter similarly.

Confusingly, the section on North America only deals with satellite FTA. If this article were written consistently, it would include ABC, NBC etc as FTA broadcasters. Ordinary Person (talk) 08:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Free-to-Air refers to free unencrypted channels receive via satellite. Channels received with an antenna such as ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX are called Over-the_Air. Refer to Over-the-air programming

Need to stop removing the externel links whoever keeps doing it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkside05 (talk • contribs) 04:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Free-to-Air refers to free unencrypted channels receive via satellite. Not according to the introduction. Ordinary Person (talk) 15:01, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a links directory hence many of the overtly commercial links are removed. The Lyngsat links are some of the oldest and respected satellite TV and radio channel links on the web and I've restored them. Jmccormac (talk) 03:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

But isn't the page at FreeToAir.com information about FTA television as well? I understand your point, but i'd like to clear it up.

The over-the-air programming article seems to contain a lot of material which is not about OTA TV broadcasting, but is about firmware downloads to various mobile devices. This is very far off the topic, so perhaps either over-the-air broadcasting needs to be created to cover FTA terrestrial television (unless we presume terrestrial pay-TV to be as good as dead in most markets) or the topic needs to be moved here. Mobile firmware downloads have precious little to do with the free (or advertiser-funded) broadcast of radio/TV programming. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 17:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The focus on satellite FTA in the Europe section

As it is this article is very misleading. Whole sections completely ignore terrestrial broadcasting. In the UK Freeview is a FTA broadcast as it unencrypted. It also implies that Satellite TV is the only method available in Ireland. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.46.49.45 (talk) 09:37, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The intro claims "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" but much of the content of this page centres on Ku-band DVB satellite. Perhaps a decision needs to be made whether to cover free-to-air satellite as the topic of this page and the FTA receiver page (pushing terrestrial digital and analogue to over-the-air programming) or whether to attempt to balance this page to cover both sat and terrestrial? I'd consider a hat-note to refer to OTA for terrestrial TV, but it's not clear whether the topic is within or outside of the scope of this page. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 17:10, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Grey market

Legally, it is a copyright offence to export the decryption cards to neighbouring countries in order to watch Austrian TV there. Surely this is complete nonsense. Austria is an EU member state is it not ? 86.112.94.153 (talk) 18:27, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

It is an important point. Many channels will have a mix of locally produced programmes and syndicated programming from US and elsewhere. The programmes that end up free to air via satellite are generally those locally produced. The channel would only have the rights for its local market so exporting decryption cards is not supposed to be done. Jmccormac (talk) 18:44, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The fact that a channel only has rights for its local market may be legal binding on the channel; but it cannot be a binding on the end customer since freedom of movement of people and goods is a key principle of the European Union. The whole system of rights limited to national borders is wishful thinking, and a total absurdity in the age of a united Europe and free movement of goods; it is rearguard and futile since it is quite impossible to police. It would be far better for grabbing rights-holders to recognise how futile this is, and accept the reality of the fact that satellite broadcasting, just like the wind and the rain, is quite oblivious to national borders. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.253.31.29 (talk) 12:28, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

At least in Switzerland you can only buy a decoder card if you are living in Switzerland or you have swiss nationality and are living in an other country.--84.227.74.148 (talk) 20:16, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

References

Moved from article space to talk page

This was placed by Rickstaebler on the main page. I've moved it here. 73.254.89.137 (talk) 05:53, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

The opening of the article is inaccurate. Free-to-air (FTA) is NOT carried on terrestrial radio signals or received with a standard antenna. These signals are sent from satellites in the Clarke belt using the Ku and C bands. A special receiver and antenna (dish) are required to receive these. These are mentioned later in the article, but the opening is misleading. The opening of the article is actually referring to Over-the-Air (OTA) television (TV). -- Rickstaebler

Requested move 29 September 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Consensus against a move. (closed by non-admin page mover) feminist (talk) wear a mask, you stupid bastards 07:14, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

---

• Free-to-air → Free-to-air broadcasting
• Free-to-view → Free-to-view broadcasting

– Per WP:NOUN, WP:PRECISE. Many things beyond mass media broadcasts can be free to air (e.g. one's opinions or laundry) or view (e.g. a street performance or landmark). 85.238.91.38 (talk) 02:50, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:CONCISE, I think it's pretty obvious these pages refer to broadcasting, and not to laundry.--Ortizesp (talk) 14:55, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

That doesn't address my WP:NOUN concern, "Nouns and noun phrases are normally preferred over titles using other parts of speech". "Free-to-air" and "Free-to-view" are adjectives. I'm more than happy to keep the existing titles as {{R from adjective}}. 85.238.91.38 (talk) 04:32, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per Ortizesp - Obviously not referring to laundry, I see no valid reason to move at this time. –Davey2010^Talk 20:31, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

UK Terrestrial TV is not free to air by this article's definition

This reticle starts by saying that free to air TV does not require a subscription, or other ongoing cost, to watch. Then, in the UK section it lists a number of channels. In the UK it is an offence to watch live TV without a licence - this is an ongoing cost. The article should clarify the point about ongoing cost, or it should remove the terrestrial channels in the UK section. 80.42.92.160 (talk) 07:31, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Moved

"Free-to-air television" is a more specific name and objectivley fits better Equalwidth (C) 07:20, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Was there any discussion about this move? The article includes radio, so I don't see this move as an improvement. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 10:23, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

You can make follow-up discussions on my talk page's Move talk section. Equalwidth (C) 10:26, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Move proposals are ALWAYS discussed on article talk pages (as above). See WP:MOVE and related pages. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 11:01, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

This discussion is not for a move proposal Equalwidth (C) 11:04, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

As I understand it, you have moved the article without prior discussion - is that correct? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 12:01, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes Equalwidth (C) 13:34, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

@Equalwidth: Do not ever do that again. You don't understand how anything works. — Smuckola(talk) 09:15, 17 November 2023 (UTC)