The range of services that the Internet provides most households is for continuous service - so it is never off as it is always being used.

As for dwindling resources - I would not say wind and solar is dwindling - not yet anyway, give it a few billion years.

Emley Moor is one of 1154 UK transmitters for TV - one for every 60K people in the UK. So no, it is not the only transmitter for 1.5 million households, many others are needed to cover the gaps in coverage because of geography.

Ian Nock said:

In reality that will depend very much on the popularity of Sports consumption, as the big stand out live event, in the country concerned.

And even then I'm guessing there'll be a demographic involved - there will be those who would prefer / be more used to livestreaming rather than picking up the broadcast - so still seeing it in (near enough) real time but not through the broadcast signal? There's the social factor of seeing it as live as possible, which is important, but it doesn't need to be broadcast to do so.

If we were to start from here (i.e. with the technology we have available now), and suggest the two options of broadcasting or streaming (i.e. available on demand anytime from a second after the event onwards) I'd suggest we wouldn't even consider broadcasting - what's the benefit to the supplier or the customer? Do we watch broadcasts because it's a better experience (and just now is a time of year when my wife and I do watch quite a lot of broadcasts) or is it just habit? I'll bet there's been a huge amount of research papers on this...

Absolutely there is a lot of research done in this area.

Demographics is an interesting subject for modes of consumption - largely because the population who focused on traditional linear consumption are now aging out (apologies but this is an industry phrase for 'passing away' or adopting behaviours attributed to younger groups). Certainly considering that those who 'came of age' in the home computer era are now in their late 50s and 60s, these have adopted Internet consumption as readily as younger groups mostly driven by pervasive and higher quality home broadband.

And you are correct - that thought exercise of 'if it was invented today' has been played out, and certainly having a single infrastructure broadband network first would have meant that Broadcast over the air, Cable TV and even PVRs would not exist. Same with landline telephones - they have gone through a transition that will abruptly change at the beginning of 2027 - in that by that point most will only have mobile telephony (such that anyone even makes phone calls anymore).

The single network approach also has major in home benefits that have driven adoption - you don't need an antenna, dedicated cabling and extra ports in fixed positions in your house - WiFi works very well to distribute from the fixed line entry point to anywhere you want to consume it in the house. Also most people own their own personal screens that have completely replaced the old 15" TV in the back room / bedroom scenarios.

Hi Lisa, thank you for posting this question. I was wondering whether to respond to this question or not simply because I cannot write enough in a single post about what I have been doing in my various global positions just to help broadcasters, especially Public Service Media to serve their audience without any distractions from tech giants.

Radio over a century and TV over eight or nine decades served the public improving their services continually in line with technological advancements.  We had interactivity in Radio and TV for over half a century using telephone lines (just copper wire). Recent failures of big tech giants in their attempts to have live events show how robust and resilient our broadcast over the air is. When it is PSM (Public Service Media), they are free and have no gatekeepers.

 We (Internal Telecommunication Union - ITU, HbbTV in EU) introduced Integrated Broadcast Broadband (IBB) technologies that enabled Freeviewplus in New Zealand and Australia too.  Similar services are in Singapore and, many EU countries. Using the return channel of the Broadband (the Internet) IBB engine provides interactivity. It has recommendations, alters, personalisation and many other features.

 As PSM, we are now getting ready for to next wave when it is ready. New Zealand, we stream (live) all its three (linear) channels in real-time. While anywhere in the country, despite of weather we can receive high quality 100% HD (high-definition signal) the quality of the signal, for streaming quality depends on where you are, what time of the day, and what is your broadband plan. A person living away from Fibre cannot have high-speed or unlimited high-speed broadband access. We cannot meet the Universal access policy by switching off over-the-air (OTA) for them. Access to information is a human right. The UK introduced Freely recently, a similar service. The advantage is four broadcasters got together like when we introduced Freeview DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) and Frewviewplus DTT with BOV and VOD.

 You can follow my monthly articles on the Singapore APB+ online publication.

 Traditional Broadcasting and OTA are not outdated. It has evolved over the time it is to be relevant.

 There are over 28 articles that discuss sustainability, online-only delivery, convergence, spectrum, audiences, multi-platform, experience, QoE, CDN, Free-to-Broadband (FTB), discovery, interworking, digital divide, universality, accessibility, alternative platform, complementary platforms, IP, network agnostic, television4all, linear TV, linear radio, hybrid TV, Hybrid Radio, early warnings, AI, disinformation, trust, digital-first, FAST, disaster communication, UHF spectrum, media pluralism and information for all.