Why do local broadcast television stations have so many large satellite dishes?

Answer 1

Broadcast Television stations are heavily reliant on communication with other television production organizations and content delivery companies.

Although land based communications are becoming ever faster, the television industry has been built on satellite communication systems due to the very mobile nature of news and event gathering production units. Live news feeds can be obtained from almost anywhere in the world with a satellite transmission. The signal can be transported around the world an back to base stations with ease.

TV stations use several satellites for incoming and outgoing signals, hence the array of dishes, all of which can be active at any time.

Unlike domestic satellite dishes, commercial dishes need to be capable of receiving low power transmissions from satellites that are not always in ideal locations. The large size of the dishes allows higher signal levels to be captured, from satellites that many be low in the sky and also overcome the problem of weather related dropout occasionally experienced by residential dishes.