A program distribution system capable of discarding a distributed program according to the properties of the program is provided. In the program distribution system, a program is distributed from a program transmission apparatus to a program reception terminal over a network. The program transmission apparatus includes a transmission processing section. The program reception terminal includes a reception-side storage section and a discard processing section. The transmission processing section transmits a program and discarding procedure information to the program reception terminal. The discarding procedure information relates to a procedure of discarding the program performed by the program reception terminal. The reception-side storage section stores the program transmitted from the transmission processing section. The discard processing section discards the program stored in the reception-side storage section according to a discarding procedure specified by the discarding procedure information transmitted from the transmission processing section.