Reply #9: I think it's mainly Plasma TVs that are the energy hogs these days:

[gulfcoastliberal]

If you go into an electronics store and they have the plasma tvs sequestered off in their own area, you can feel quite a bit of heat radiating off them.

The other "micro display" big screens use a small but powerful light bulb that shines through an LCD or DLP chip to create the picture - I doubt they use as much juice as the plasmas with their huge power transformers.

For the record, I own a 34" Sony widescreen and it's used only to watch Countdown, Daily Show, Colbert, the occasional other program (like tennis & some HBO) and the odd DVD once in a while. Don't know about CRT power consumption - but I think they do use a good bit of juice, though not nearly as much as plasmas.