Satellite television varies in the different regions around the world.

Africa Satellite television has been far more successful in Africa than cable, primarily because the infrastructure for cable television does not exist and would be expensive to install owing to the living style of most Africans who live in rural areas. Furthermore, maintaining a cable network is expensive due to the need to cover larger and more sparsely populated areas though there are some terrestrial pay-TV and MMDS services.

The launch of Free2view made satellite TV available to the masses in Africa.

Angola In 2010, ZAP launched in Angola, providing digital satellite television on Eutelsat 36D mainly for Portuguese speaking countries in sub-Saharan Africa and DStv Bue of Portuguese stations.

Francophonie Canal+ Afrique, owned by France's Canal+, is the main provider in French-speaking Africa on Satellite SES-4 (22.0 W).

Francophonie consists country of: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Benin, Guinea, Mali, Togo, Republic of the Congo, Niger, Chad, Gabon, Central African Republic, Burundi, Rwanda, Mauritania, Djibouti.

Ghana On satellite Astra 28.2°E, SES, HD+ Ghana, GTV (Gateway TV) - to differentiate from Ghana Television (GTV)-, a British-based company, became the next contender in sub-saharan Africa providing digital satellite television. But on 30 January. 2009, the Board of Directors of Gateway Broadcast Services (GBS) approved plans to liquidate the company which was later shut down. GBS was the operator behind GTV, a popular, if niche Direct to Home (DTH) satellite Pay-TV service present in 22 African markets. The collapse of GBS was sudden for its employees, its customers and those who have long believed that there is mass-market potential in African pay-TV.

Kenya The Wananchi Group of Zuku TV consists of 5 countries, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia on satellite SES 5, the StarSat on Sub-Saharan African region and StarTimes and Free-to-air channel on satellite Eutelsat 10B.

Mozambique The satellite Eutelsat 3B, and StarTimes and TMT mainly for Portuguese speaking African and satellite Eutelsat 36D of DStv Bue of Portuguese stations and ZAP, the satellite Intelsat 22 at 72e, MultiChoice's DTT- Terrestrial of GOtv Africa is transmits on satellite channels of portuguese.

Namibia The Satelio, German speaking countries in sub-Saharan Africa on satellite Astra 4A.

Nigeria Traditionally DStv Africa satellite on Eutelsat 36C/D had held a large market share in Nigeria's Satellite television sector but several companies, HiTV, MyTV, Trend TV, ACTV, Consat, Daarsat, Metrodigital, Montage cable network and StarTimes DTT, a Chinese company which launched in 2009 has managed to reach about 800,000 households in October 2011.

Réunion Canal+ Réunion owned by France's Canal+ Groups and Vivendi, is the main provider in French-speaking for east african region and :fr: Parabole Réunion on satellite Eutelsat 16A. Another entrant into the satellite television circuit in Africa is MyTv Africa has been defunct since 2023, and product subsidiary of Dubai-based Strong Technologies.

Francophonie consists country of East Africa: Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion, Comoros, Mayotte, Seychelles.

South Africa

The Intelsat 20/36, served by Multichoice's DStv is the main digital satellite television provider in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, broadcasting principally in English, but also in Portuguese, and Afrikaans. Multichoice's DStv had 6 million paid subscribers on 30 September 2016.

The Free-to-air eMedia Investments as of 2023, OpenView HD is available in more than 3 million households.

While StarSat is operated by On Digital Media, about 500,000 households in October 2024 in South Africa. served sub-Saharan Africa on satellite SES 5.

Astra 4A served German speaking for Deukom South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa of Satelio.

Sudan Sudan TV, the government-owned national network, is available by satellite as well as broadcast.BBC News: Country profile: Sudan. 18 June 2008. Retrieved 13 July 2008.

Tanzania On satellite Eutelsat 7C, Azam TV and, the Bakhresa Group consists of 6 country Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and satellite Eutelsat 36C/D, of DStv Africa, and satellite on SES 5 on DTH StarSat and DTT StarTimes, and offered used by the Wananchi Group of Zuku, On satellite ABS-2 74.9°E the Continental, Agape (Ting), and DiGitek are the satellite television service provider in Tanzania, East Africa. They offer a range of satellite TV channels and packages to subscribers, including sports, entertainment, news, and more.

Togo On satellite Eutelsat 16A, New World TV for the French-speaking, sub-Saharan Africa region.

Zambia On satellite Eutelsat 8 West B, Free-to-air channel and Topstar from StarTimes. the StarSat and the Wananchi Group of Zuku TV on satellite SES 5 and satellite Intelsat 20/36, of DStv of Southern African region.

America

Canada

Currently, there are two primary satellite television providers of subscription based service available to Canadian consumers: Bell Satellite TV and Shaw Direct. The CRTC has refused to license American satellite services, but nonetheless hundreds of thousands (up to a million by some estimates) of Canadians access or have accessed American services — usually these services have to be billed to an American address and are paid for in U.S. dollars, although some viewers receive American signals through "pirate decryption". Whether such activity is grey market or black market is the source of often heated debate between those who would like greater choice and those who argue that the protection of Canadian firms and Canadian culture is more important. In October 2004, Quebec Judge Danièle Côté ruled Canada's Radiocommunication Act to be in direct violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in so far as it bans reception of unlicensed foreign television services. The judgment gave the federal government a one-year deadline to remedy this breach of the Constitution. However, this contradicts prior Supreme Court of Canada decisions and was overturned on appeal.R. v. D'Argy, 2005 CanLII 8977 (QC C.S.) and D'Argy c. R., 2006 QCCA 1249 (CanLII) A Supreme Court of Canada decision in the case of Bell ExpressVu v. Richard Rex, made on 26 April 2002, confirms that provisions in the Radiocommunication Act forbid the illegal decoding of satellite television programming.

Although there are no official statistics, the use of American satellite services in Canada appears to be declining as of 2004. Some would claim that this is probably due to a combination of increasingly aggressive police enforcement and an unfavourable exchange rate between the Canadian and U.S. currencies. As the U.S. dollar has been declining as of 2005 versus other international currencies, the decline in DirecTV viewership in Canada may well be related not to a cost difference as much as to the series of smart card swaps which have rendered the first three generations of DirecTV access cards (F, H and HU) all obsolete. Bell underwent a period of phasing out satellite receivers in urban areas, replacing it with IPTV transmitted over regular telephone lines.

Brazil

There are about 10 million subscribers of satellite TV in Brazil; the main satellite system is SKY Brasil with approximately 1.4 million subscribers; other satellite TV operators are Vivo TV, Claro TV and Oi TV. A major problem are pirate receivers (usually using card sharing systems to cheat the conditional access systems) which amount to an unknown quantity of users.

The service offered in Brazil includes Digital TV with full Dolby Digital surround support, mts and multiple subtitle options, a first for the Brazilian market. A recent update to Sky's services in Brazil is Sky+ which allows the customer to record a program while watching another one and also Sky HD which currently provides up to 29 high definition channels. Services are however relatively expensive, therefore market penetration is still limited.

Chile There are several satellite providers in Chile. The main ones are listed below: DirecTV Movistar TV Claro TV TuVes HD Entel (Chile)

Mexico

Hispanic America's main satellite systems are SKY México with 3 million subscribers and Dish México with 2.2 million subscribers and Vrio, which provides service to the rest of the Americas, with a total of approximately 1.3 million subscribers.

United States

Currently, there are two primary satellite television providers of subscription based service available to United States consumers: DirecTV positions ranging from Galaxy 3C, 95°W to EchoStar XIV, 119°W, EchoStar, and Dish Network.

Asia

Bangladesh All privately owned television channels in Bangladesh broadcast via satellite television, and terrestrial television signals are only used by state-owned Bangladesh Television. There is only one satellite providers in Bangladesh, Akash DTH.

India Over 1340 TV Satellite channels are broadcast in India. This includes channels from the state-owned Doordarshan, News Corporation owned STAR TV, Sony owned Sony Entertainment Television, Sun Network and Zee TV. Major satellite television providers in India are DD Free Dish, Dish TV, Airtel digital TV, Reliance Digital TV, Videocon d2h, Sun Direct and Tata Play. Most of them have already started their premium HDTV services.

These services are provided by locally built satellites from ISRO such as INSAT 4CR, INSAT 4A, INSAT-2E, INSAT-3C and INSAT-3E as well as private satellites such as the Dutch-based SES, Global-owned NSS 6, Thaicom-2 and Telstar 10.

Indonesia The first satellite television provider in Indonesia, Indovision (currently MNC Vision), was established on 16 January 1994; initially utilizing Palapa B2P satellite. Today there are a bunch of satellite television providers as well as satellite channels, both free-to-air and pay. Satellite television providers, other than MNC Vision, include K-Vision (also owned by MNC Vision), Transvision, Nex Parabola, and Accola Play. Satellite channels include IDX Channel and SEA Today.

Japan The medium-scale Broadcasting Satellite for Experimental Purposes (BSE) was planned by Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MOPT) and developed by the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) since 1974. After that, the first Japanese experimental broadcasting satellite, called BSE or Yuri, was launched in 1978. NHK started experimental broadcasting of TV program using BS-2a satellite in May 1984.

The satellite BS-2a was launched in preparation for the start of full scale 2-channel broadcasts. Broadcasting Satellite BS-2a, part of the Yuri series, was the first national DBS (direct broadcasting satellite), transmitting signals directly into the home of TV viewers. Attitude control of the satellite was conducted using the 3 axial method (zero momentum), and design life was 5 years. The TV transponder units are designed to sufficiently amplify transmitted signals to enable reception by small, 40 or 60 cm home-use parabolic antennas. The satellite was equipped with 3 TV transponders (including reserve units). However, one transponder malfunctioned 2 months after launch (23 March 1984) and a second transponder malfunctioned 3 months after launch (3 May 1984). So, the scheduled satellite broadcasting had to be hastily adjusted to test broadcasting on a single channel.

Later, NHK started regular service (NTSC) and experimental HDTV broadcasting using BS-2b in June 1989. Some Japanese producers of home electronic consumer devices began to deliver TV sets, VCRs and even home acoustic systems equipped by built-in satellite tuners or receivers. Such electronic goods had a specific BS logo.