Broadcast television systems
standard for terrestrial television signals
Broadcast television systems (or terrestrial television systems outside the US and Canada) are the encoding or formatting systems for the transmission and reception of terrestrial television signals.
Analog television systems were standardized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 1961, with each system designated by a letter (A-N) in combination with the color standard used (NTSC, PAL or SECAM) - for example PAL-B, NTSC-M, etc.). These analog systems for TV broadcasting dominated until the 2000s.
With the introduction of digital terrestrial television (DTT), they were replaced by four main systems in use around the world: ATSC, DVB, ISDB and DTMB.
Analog television systems
Every analog television system bar one began as a black-and-white system. Each country, faced with local political, technical, and economic issues, later adopted a color television standard which was grafted onto an existing monochrome system such as CCIR System M, using gaps in the video spectrum (explained below) to allow color transmission information to fit in the existing channels allotted. The grafting of the color transmission standards onto existing monochrome systems permitted existing monochrome television receivers predating the changeover to color television to continue to be operated as monochrome television. Because of this compatibility requirement, color standards added a second signal to the basic monochrome signal, which carries the color information. The color information is called chroma with the symbol C, while the black and white information is called the luminance with the symbol Y. Monochrome television receivers only display the luminance, while color receivers process both signals. Though in theory any monochrome system could be adopted to a color system, in practice some of the original monochrome systems proved impractical to adapt to color and were abandoned when the switch to color broadcasting was made. All countries used one of three color standards: NTSC, PAL, or SECAM. For example, CCIR System M was often used in conjunction with NTSC standard, to provide color analog television and the two together were known as NTSC-M.
Pre–World War II systems
A number of experimental and broadcast systems had been developed before the WW2.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Broadcast television systems” as standard for terrestrial television signals. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as standard for terrestrial television signals. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1144899. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1961.
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This entry incorporates text from “Broadcast television systems” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.