Aereo, the service backed by Barry Diller, can keep streaming for now.

A federal judge on Wednesday denied a temporary injunction sought by television broadcasters that would have shut down Aereo, a start-up that streams local TV stations’ signals to customers over the Internet without the explicit permission of the stations.

The broadcasters said they would continue to pursue their lawsuit against the service. But the ruling by Judge Alison Nathan of the United States District Court in Manhattan gives Mr. Diller, the chief executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp, and the other backers of Aereo the confidence to move forward.

Aereo is one of the most ambitious attempts to distribute television over the Internet, potentially disrupting the existing arrangement of broadcast, cable and satellite distribution. In early March, two sets of major broadcasters sued Aereo in the Southern District of New York, weeks before the company started to accept paying subscribers in New York City.

Had the injunction been granted by the judge, Aereo “could not have continued,” Mr. Diller said in an e-mail on Wednesday after the ruling was announced. While a trial lies ahead, he said the company was “far happier to begin this process with the judge’s ruling.”

One set of broadcasters, representing Fox, Tribune, Univision and PBS stations, said in a statement that the ruling asserted “that it is O.K. to misappropriate copyrighted material and retransmit it without compensation.” The stations said they would “continue to fight to protect our copyrights and expect to prevail on appeal.”

CBS, another plaintiff, vowed to continue seeking damages and a permanent injunction. “This is only a ruling on a preliminary injunction,” the broadcaster said. “This case is not over by a long shot.”

Though now in just one market with a small number of subscribers, Aereo could portend big changes in how television is distributed and financed in the future. It is rooted in the notion that anyone can set up an antenna and freely have access to TV stations. The company relies on an array of thousands of tiny antennas, one for each customer. It retransmits the signals to customers over the Internet at a cost of $12 a month.

Because of the antenna array, Aereo pointedly does not pay fees to stations for the right to retransmit their signals. If courts continue to side with Aereo, the cable and satellite companies that currently do pay such fees may try to replicate the Aereo model.

Aereo said Wednesday evening in a news release, “Today’s decision should serve as a signal to the public that control and choice are moving back into the hands of the consumer — that’s a powerful statement.”