Picture tubes didn't typically start to fail for around 30 years if not longer, and in the 70's, which is the era I was speaking of, smaller tube replacement was no longer necessary since that ended in about the mid 60's for TV's. In the 70's all TV's had gone to solid state componentry which lasts far longer than today's microchip technology, solid state components were not as fragile as microchips are in the area of heat and surges which why all modern electronic stuff INCLUDING refrigs, microwave ovens, washers and dryers, stoves and ovens, TV's, stereos, and of course computers should be protected with surge protectors whereas prior to microchips being used in those products this wasn't necessary. So no i don't have it backwards. My inlaws used their 25 inch TV for 40 years and never had any repairs whatsoever, they only got rid of it because dad's eyes were failing and he wanted a larger TV!

We really don't have any modern LCD TV's or Plasma TV's that are over 20 years old not alone 30 or even 40 for a complete idea of how long they'll last, and the ones that will last a long time are ones that have been protected against surges with a very good surge protector. Production LCD TV's came along about the mid 90's; LCD computer monitors have been around since the mid 80's and those failed about every 5 years, I know this because mine at home and at the business, as well as people I knew, would fail about that often even with surge protection, whereas my older CRT was 15 years old before I got rid of it but it still worked, newer computer LCD that were made in the early 2000's lasted longer. So for an accurate judge of reliability one would have to wait over 20 years from the early 2000 TV's (to get rid of durability bugs which also existed in 50's and 60's era TV's), then we will have a more accurate picture of durability of modern LCD TV's.

Plasma TV's by the way have a better reliability record SO FAR than does LCD TV's SO FAR. Of course LCD has won out over Plasma (even though the picture quality in a lot of aspects is better with Plasma but I digress) so again we have to wait another 10 years for the LCD tv's history to be established before we know for sure how the newer generation of TV's will do.

But again let me stress, I in no way came out against modern TV's in my post, I even showed the cost factor of a TV back in the 70's vs today and said that even if a person had to replace a modern TV every 10 years cost wise they would be ahead of a 70's era TV, not to mention the energy savings which I failed to mention in that earlier post. So all in all modern TV's are still the better bang for the buck than TV's of the 70's...one of the few things that are.