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 TV station to a TV receiver having an ant ...

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 (business), distribution of sound, audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio ...

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 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

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 tot ...

, an independent station is a broadcast station which is not directly affiliated with any large network. In

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, an independent station is a terrestrial station which is not a member of any

networks Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

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 largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

; see

Japanese Association of Independent Television Stations The Japanese Association of Independent Television Stations (JAITS) is a group of Japan's reception fee-free commercial terrestrial television stations which are not members of the major national television networks. The association was establish ...

(JAITS) for more details. In addition, although The

Open University of Japan is a distance learning university which has students from all over Japan; it accepted its first students in 1985. History Although founded by the national government initiative with a single-issue law and heavily subsidized by the government, i ...

is not a member of JAITS, it can also be classified as independent.

See also