It is said streaming, especially video, takes plenty electricity, can be bad for the environment. So I wonder, how does watching Kim Possible on Mickey Channel compare to watching it on Mickey Plus? Similarly, and maybe even better of a comparison, how does listening to something like 623.7 FWGR Radio on FM compare to listening to the station’s online stream?
I would counter that it takes significantly more power to provide someone with internet compared to a broadcast antenna.
Google tells me a low power tv antenna broadcasts at around 2.3kw. I’ve deployed datacenters full of racks where each rack pulls more than that. Once you take into account all the networking gear between the server and the consumer, , the internet easily requires more resources. Routers, switches and servers can be pretty power hungry.
Yeah, true, but that’s mostly fixed costs, and has a pretty low incremental cost for each video delivered. The fixed costs we have to pay regardless.
But that’s even more true for broadcast. One 2.3kW transmitter works just as well for one receiver as it does for 10M. Hell even 100M, depending on geography, population density, and frequency band. That’s not true of network infrastructure.