Why do we pay for TV channels?

It's been almost a decade since TV (conventional TV setups with dish) was a daily part of my life. I stayed with my parents for almost a month and the internet is a bi**h there so I have no other alternative too. We pay almost 700 a month for the dish and the channels don't give a lot of value for what we pay. And the most frustrating part is going through 6-7 mins of ad content every 10-15 mins. I mean I'm paying more than what I pay for Netflix per month and I have no other choice than to watch ads. What do we exactly pay for? The infrastructure? I think channels do not really make money from us through the dish providers and most of the chunk comes from ad revenue but the frequency and repetitivity of ads has gone out of the hands.