Antenna towers get hit all the time, and the transmitters and receivers survive if installed properly. First, there's a spark gap between the antenna and ground, with big metal contacts, copper or silver, a short distance apart. That diverts most of the lightning bolt to ground. Then the feed line for the antenna has a big inductor, a coil made of heavy busbar, usually in a grounded can. This is often placed through the wall of a grounded metal equipment enclosure.
The inductance blocks a fast risetime lightning bolt, forcing the energy to the spark gap. A few hundred volts will still get through that. So following that there's a gas tube protector, which is essentially a neon tube which will ionize and short to ground. (Phone lines also have those at the central office end.) Following that is a MOV, as in a surge suppressor, to dump the remaining surge into ground. What's left after than can be tolerated by most RF electronics intended for such applications.
If this didn't work, radio wouldn't work in Florida. It's not that this stuff is expensive compared to the equipment it protects. It's that the front end stuff is big; #4 copper cables, big spark gap units, heavy ground rods, and solid metal equipment enclosures with welded seams.
Somewhere right now, a cellular tower is taking a lightning hit and restarting itself without damage.
