A specialty channel can be a commercial broadcasting or non-commercial television channel which consists of television programming focused on a single genre, subject or targeted television market at a specific demographic.
The number of specialty channels has greatly increased during the 1990s and 2000s while the previously common model of countries having just a few (national) TV stations addressing all interest groups and demographics became increasingly outmoded, as it already had been for some time in several countries. About 65% of today's satellite channels are specialty channels.
Types of specialty services may include, but by no means are limited to:

(These categories are provided for convenience and do not necessarily represent industry-accepted or otherwise legally-binding names or categories for these types of services.)
Some specialty channels may not be free-to-air or may not be available through conventional broadcast or terrestrial television. In the United States, such networks are colloquially referred to as cable channels or cable networks (regardless of distribution method), with the most widely distributed referred to as "basic cable" networks. In the U.S., specialty services also operate as broadcast television networks designed to be carried on digital subchannels of terrestrial stations (which proliferated following the transition from analog broadcasting), with the largest usually focusing on library programming catering to specific genres or demographics.