SECAM line identification in an analog television includes an accumulator that accumulates a FM demodulated output corresponding to a color reference tone for each SECAM line; a first leakage average filter receiving a first result from the accumulator; a second leakage average filter receiving a second result from the accumulator; and a line decision block comparing the first result and the second result. An apparatus for soft-decision based PAL switch detection in an analog television includes a burst locked oscillator (BLO) receiving a composite video signal as input and producing an instantaneous PAL switch signal for each line; a leakage average filter receiving the PAL switch signal and filtering noise from an output received from the BLO; and a switch detection block receiving a filtered output from the leakage average filter, and making a decision based on a sign of the filtered output of the leakage average filter.