: a service providing noncommercial television programming (such as recent movies and entertainment specials) by means of a scrambled signal to subscribers who are provided with a decoder

called also pay television

compare pay-cable, subscription tv

Examples of pay-TV in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web There has been speculation in the industry that a legacy company with cable channels could launch a rollup vehicle, something that could acquire other channels to build scale, giving it the ability to drive harder bargains with pay-TV providers and pursuing other options in streaming. Alex Weprin, The Hollywood Reporter, 31 Oct. 2024 With the contraction in the pay-TV environment, NBCU has over the years shut down underperforming cablers like G4, Cloo, Esquire Network and NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) in contrast to some of its peers. Todd Spangler, Variety, 31 Oct. 2024 Connectivity & Platforms, the division housing the company’s broadband and pay-TV businesses, saw total revenue slip less than 1% to $20.3 billion, with adjusted EBITDA rising a fraction of a percentage point to $8.3 billion. Dade Hayes, Deadline, 31 Oct. 2024 Though non-subscribers were shut out from Dodgers games for years, Spectrum reached a deal in 2020 to broadcast games on DirecTV and U-Verse (though other pay-TV operators, such as Cox, are still excluded). Samantha Masunaga, Los Angeles Times, 28 Oct. 2024 See all Example Sentences for pay-TV 

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pay-TV.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1954, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of pay-TV was in 1954

Dictionary Entries Near pay-TV

Cite this Entry

“Pay-TV.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pay-TV. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!