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If you're spending too much on pay television, consider firing your monopoly cable or satellite provider and joining the 1% of Americans who watch all of their TV on Internet connections.
So what do you do after you get rid of cable or satellite? Here are some alternatives:
YouTube has launched feature-length programming, plus there's always Joost and Hulu. An estimated 20% of cable programming is now available through the computer.
Firing your cable or satellite provider can save you more than $1,000 annually.
Two friends of mine DITCHED cable television and they'll never go back.
Don't go cold turkey, but see if you can ease your way into it. Also, the lowest level membership in Netflix allows you to get the Roku box and have a huge library of content on-demand.
It's true...our cable bill is about $1200 a year, and we don't even have premium channels (just HD and DVR). When you look at it that way, it seems like kind of a waste.
Or you could set up a cheap antenna and receive over-the-air digital TV for free. I get ~10 crystal clear digital OTA channels with better picture quality than cable or satellite, and it costs me nary a cent. I certainly don't need or want the 25/50/100/2000 channels that all the cable/satellite packages provide.
I built my own DVR that has more capabilities than Tivo. Again, the monthly fees are zero dollars, zero cents.
I have a very contented smile on my face when I think about all the money I am saving.
I do have the lowest level Netflix subscription to satisfy my movie cravings.
Any current, past, or about to be released movie or television program can be found on the internet both legally and illegally, if you know where and how to look. But seriously, sitting around the laptop or desktop to watch a television program is not my idea of entertainment and I don't feel like hooking up either to my HDTV because I am just that lazy.
Seriously though, I pay around $50 a month for cable. That's what, one night at the bar? I don't make much money, but I also do not have credit card bills (okay, one very, very small one), car payments, a mortgage, children, gym membership, insurance on multiple vehicles, a drug habit, friends/family who mooch off of me, and I drive a Honda (that I saved up and paid for in full) etc, etc. So that $50 is pretty much goes un-noticed.
LOL... and who do you think provides the Internet connection to a vast majority of the people in the U.S? FYI Comcast has introduced a bandwidth cap and most major providers are expected to follow, this IMO is the direct result of the internet evolving into a medium for getting video.
The cap instituted by Comcast can easily accommodate 2 or 3 people watching low quality youtube videos 24/7 that if my infomation is correct are encoded around 250kbps. However the "HD" offering on the internet start around 2000kbps, real HD starts around 25,000kbps but could be dropped to around 10,000kbps with some codecs and still look really good. The bandwidth cap would drastically curtail watching video like that....
That's besides the fact leagal offerings are few and far between, as this evolves you will get more offerings but you're still going to pay. You'll have a bill for the internet connection and a bill for the content... e.g. the NFL network comes to mind immediately.
LOL... and who do you think provides the Internet connection to a vast majority of the people in the U.S? FYI Comcast has introduced a bandwidth cap and most major providers are expected to follow, this IMO is the direct result of the internet evolving into a medium for getting video.
That's the point I was about to make. Bandwidth caps are going to make this strategy more expensive than the cable it replaces.
Before I rented a place that provides free cable, I only used the internet for television viewing. My son used his PS3 internet connection on his tv. OVGuide.com is great for directing you to just about anything you want to watch.
I just don't use cable since i seldom watch TV. But the only TV I watch is the free over-the air channels. The roof antenna does that very well, and doesn't cost me a penny. The TV already has a built-in tuner, so I can watch all the free TV channels broadcasted where I live at. There are not too many of these channels, just enough: 2, 4, 7 (FOX), three or four PBS channels, 11, and 13.
I am seriously considering dropping my Dish satellite subscription since at $50 a month I am basically paying for stupid commercials. If I see Billy May one more time I may actually tell them to come and get the Dish.
Television has become a bore, even without the commercials. How many times have you flipped through all the channels and still there is nothing to watch?
But cutting the umbilical cord is scary.
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