Satellite Television

Satellite television first came into the market in the early 1990s.
Satellite TV was a lot harder to get than broadcast and cable TV.
Back in the early years of satellite, home dishes were quite expensive and huge, therefore would take up a lot of space on or around someones house.
Satellite television is a form of television programming where communications are received by an outdoor satellite dish.
Even today, big satellite dishes can be seen on the front or back of peoples houses.
In many locations throughout the world, satellite television provides a wide range of channels and various services.
Most satellite TV customers get their services through direct-broadcast. With this, the provider selects programs and broadcasts them to subscribers as a set package. This is how the provider would keep up against competition which is cable TV.
Direct-broadcast satellite television comes in two different variations. These are analog and digital.
The difference being in that you have an analog satellite receiver or a digital satellite receiver.
A problem with satellite television, is that there is more chance of losing the signal in bad weather because it affects the signals that the dish sends out. Therefore this may not always a reliable way to watch television.

How does satellite television work?

Programming sources are put into place. The provider will not have created the programming themselves, they would pay other companies for the right to broadcast content through satellite.
An example of this could be the channel ESPN, the provider will contact ESPN and ask for their permission, putting it simply the provider is the 'middleman' between the programming source and the customer which is watching.

Broadcast center is the central hub of the system and where the TV provider receives signals from the programming sources. Then a broadcast signal is beamed into the orbit.

Satellites then receive the signal, then rebroadcast them back down to Earth.

Satellite dishes then pick up the signal from the satellites and passes it on to the receiver in the house.

Receiver then processes this signal, passing in to a television set.

Image source link.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/satellite-tv.htm
http://dishtv.com/blog/2012/04/24/how-does-satellite-tv-work/

All of the above text and images were sourced from the sources provided in the above links.