structural:expansion
Europe, Asia, Africa and South America

Most television services outside North America are national networks established by a combination of publicly funded broadcasters and commercial broadcasters. Most nations established television networks in a similar way: the first television service in each country was operated by a public broadcaster, often funded by a television licensing fee, and most of them later established a second or even third station providing a greater variety of content. Commercial television services also became available when private companies applied for television broadcasting licenses. Often, each new network would be identified with their channel number, so that individual stations would often be numbered "One", "Two", "Three" and so forth.