The bandwidth of a signal is the range of broadcast frequencies used in the transmission of the signal16. There is a limit to the amount of information that can be broadcast in a given bandwidth, and so the neccessary bandwidth is the minimum amount of spectrum required to transmit a given signal without distortion, degradation of other loss of information. Since frequencies in the radio spectrum are usually at a premium, techniques such as composite colour systems (as described in Section 5.3) are often desired to lower the neccessary bandwidth for a transmitted signal.