How does a TV station work?

A news channel is a factory that runs live, to the second. Read a teleprompter, cut between cameras in the control room, time a satellite hop, squeeze a billion bits a second, follow the signal to your dish and see how ratings meters decide who gets paid.

Read how it works: How does a TV station work? · The history of the TV station · More boxes on Glassbox

Chapters in this interactive model

1. Lights, cameras, and words on glass: A news studio is a stage built so a few people can look calm on camera.
2. “Ready two… take two”: Next door, a team in the dark picks every picture you see.
3. Why the reporter pauses: A picture from a riverbank, bounced off a satellite 36,000 km up or split across phone networks.
4. A billion bits a second, squeezed: Studio video is enormous. Codecs shrink it, and a server plays the channel to the second.
5. Four roads to your TV: Up to a satellite and down to a dish, a cable, a tower or a phone.
6. Who is watching, and can you trust it?: A few thousand secret meters decide where advertising money goes.