An independent station is an independent radio or

terrestrial television Terrestrial television or over-the-air television (OTA) is a type of television broadcasting in which the signal transmission occurs via radio waves from the terrestrial (Earth-based) transmitter of a television station, TV station to a televis ...

station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market environment and the

broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

medium's development history. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

, an independent station is a broadcast station which is not directly affiliated with any large network. In Japan, an independent station is a terrestrial station which is not a member of any networks whose dominant stations are located in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

; see Japanese Association of Independent Television Stations (JAITS) for more details. In addition, although The Open University of Japan is not a member of JAITS, it can also be classified as independent.

See also