Satellite TV service allows subscribers to get an extensive variety of TV programs and channels. The programs available for you to watch come from two primary programming sources. The first is called “national turnaround channels” and these include channels such as CNN, HBO and ESPN. The other major source for programming comes through local channels, which cover CBS, FOX, ABC, NBC and the regional PBS affiliates.

Your Service Provider is a Programming Broker

A satellite TV service provider acts as a sort of broker between the programming companies (CNN, HBO, etc.) and you, the subscribing customer. Your satellite TV company does not actually create the programs that you watch on your television. Your service provider pays the programming companies for the right to broadcast what you view on your set via the satellite system.

Collecting the Programming Data

Your service provider’s satellite system engages various components to direct the content to your home. The central hub of the system is the “broadcast center”. This is where all the data is collected from various programming sources. For the most part, the turnaround channels have a distribution center that beams their programs to a geosynchronous (orbits the Earth in synchronization with the Earth’s rotation) satellite. Your service provider picks up the analog and digital signals from the geosynchronous satellites with a large satellite dish.

Local stations typically do not transmit their programming to satellites as do the turnaround channels. This means that your service provider has to get local programming using an alternative method. This usually involves a small facility on location that consists of a few racks of communications equipment. This equipment broadcasts the signals to your provider’s main broadcast center.

Transmitting the Signal You Receive as TV Programs

The broadcast center takes all of the programming data it collects and converts it into a superior quality, uncompressed digital stream.  It then creates a compressed signal which it beams to the satellite that transmits signals to the satellite dish where you live. Basically, this particular satellite receives signals from your service provider’s broadcast center and rebroadcast them to Earth.

Your satellite dish picks up the signals from the satellite, or in some cases, multiple satellites and passes them to the receiver in your house. The receiver processes the signals and converts them into data that is compatible with your TV. The end result is a significant variety of channels available for you to view through your satellite TV service.