There are currently two distinct satellite services operating in Japan: Broadcast Satellite ('Bsat' or 'BS') which began as an analog service in 1987 and subsequently launched a digital service in December 2000; and Communication Satellite ('Csat' or 'CS') which began in 1989 and 1992 as two analog services called Skyport and CS-BAAN, respectively.

Two digital Csat platforms, PerfecTV and DIRECTV Japan were subsequently established, and each absorbed one of the analog services. PerfecTV merged later with Japan Sky Broadcasting to form SkyPerfecTV. DIRECTV Japan failed to attract enough subscribers and shut down in 2000.

The digital Bsat service comprises television, radio, and data broadcasting services with some interactive features. The service is dominated by NHK, Wowow, and satellite affiliates of the five major terrestrial networks. A number of dedicated datacast networks are providing marginally useful information services, plus home banking and other transaction services. The TV channels also have datacasting capabilties, which have been used to augment programming as a data simulcast. At this time the five channels affiliated with the terrestrials are free, relying on wide-spread penetration to boost their advertising business model. So far, the slower-than-expected pace of penetration has led to heavy losses for the commercial channels. The analog Bsat service, which delivers just NHK and Wowow, will be phased out as subscribers migrate to the digital service. Signal termination is scheduled for 2011.

Two new digital Csat broadcast platforms SkyPerfecTV "2" and Plat-One subsequently began service in 2002 on-board N-SAT-110, a new comsat launched in October 2000. SkyP "2" was essentially a subset of programming available on the original SkyPerfecTV. Plat-One represented a somewhat innovative, yet relatively slim offering. The two main forces behind the platform were Wowow, supplying four PPV channels; NTV Networks, Japan's strongest terrestrial; and 'ep'.

Unfortunately, Plat-One and SkyP2 did not enjoy healthy subscriber growth. In particular, Plat-One was withering. On March 1, SkyP2 absorbed the Plat-One service, once again leaving Japan with a single Csat operating platform controlled by SkyPerfect Communications. SkyP2 has been renamed SkyP "110."

Competition continues in the digital TV realm. On December 1, 2003, the country launched digital terrestrial broadcast service in the major metro areas of Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. The broadcast areas remain small, however, until interference countermeasures are completed for existing analog broadcast TV channels. The principle problem concerns frequencies for DTV overlapping with existing UHF frequency usage for analog service.