How much $$ will TV stations save when they turn off the analog transmitters in Feb ?

[Larry Weil]

At 06:29 PM 9/7/2008, Ken VanTassell wrote:

>Just curious, does anyone know what the average monthly electric bill
>is for a TV station in Boston ? How much will they save when they turn
>off the analog transmitter ?
>Will the savings be eaten up by upping the digital power output as I
>understand some stations will do ?

First of all, most stations are not running their digital signal at 
reduced power.  A few did when they first came on, but since nearly 
all TVs sold in the past few years are digital/HDTV sets, it would be 
ridiculous for any station to want to run reduced power.  Much of 
what you have heard about this is simply an urban legend.

As for how much power will be saved, I really don't have any idea of 
what is the number.  What I can say is the stations that will save 
the most will be those that remain on VHF, since VHF requires much 
less power than UHF.  At this point, nearly all stations (there are 
exceptions) have their digital signal on a UHF channel, those 
transmitters use a tremendous amount of power. (Again, don't ask me 
for a number!)   A solid state VHF digital transmitter uses a lot 
less power by comparison.

However, this all is a very small amount of the total budget to 
operate a TV station, I don't think you'll be seeing any stations 
turn off their analog signal early to save on the power bill.


Larry Weil
WHDH/WLVI Master Control
Lake Wobegone, NH