Anyone Else Drop Their Cable TV? (Nashville, Canada, movie, commercials)
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I cut the cord earlier this year and it's been a little difficult for the shows that I used to love - Sons of Anarchy and American Horror Story and Justified. I have a friend who records on VHS tape SOA and Am. Horror Story for me and I catch up when I can.
All the rest ... I could care less about. I find I watch PBS mostly when I want to watch TV - I had no idea that some of those shows were so good I get 12 channels with an HD over the air antennae.
what I find most though .. Is how much less TV I watch.
I posted on another thread that my son has an HDTV indoor antenna, but his problem is that because of the location of his apartment in his complex, he only gets reception in one room -- his bedroom and doesn't get FOX or NBC, but his desktop PC is in his livingroom, so he can't hook up his TV to his computer. His TV is only a 19" TV/DVD and his computer monitor is 17", so he'll watch network in real time in his bedroom, then watch delayed network broadcasts on his computer in the livingroom the next day or so. He has access to my Amazon Prime, and is trying to figure out how to get his XBox to get hulu as he has that hooked up to his TV.
You only need one indoor HDTV antenna in your home, and you can use a coax splitter to send the signal to all the TVs in your home.
I have my indoor antenna located where I have the best reception, and I have the output feeding a coax splitter. I have several 25' coax cables running from the splitter to each of my 3 TVs.
I also have 15db signal boosters similar to this one at the end of the cable, before it feeds into the TV:
If cable TV becomes a la carte, and I don't think it will in the USA, cable will be more expensive per channel than the bundling you get now. The content creators want to take more control of their programming, cutting out the middle man (cable/satellite), so the dynamic of content delivery will change gradually.
People always use that term "a la carte", and I think they mean that you can purchase ESPN, or USA, or TNT or TBS. But maybe you will be able to purchase an NFL game or a team's season, or all games directly from a production company who is employed by the NFL. Chuck Lorre will sell shows, instead of making them for CBS.
A lot of the organization of TV channels is somewhat superficial. The same TV shows and movies can circulate from channel to channel. With the ultimate Video on Demand then you can watch a movie at anytime. You don't have to watch it on one channel or another.
There is a growing number of threads here about people who have done that. I did it over a year ago. I have an indoor antenna and I get all the programs I want. Anything else I order DVD's or watch online. I pay for nothing other than NetFlix DVD's. I will never go back to cable and I don't care to subscribe to anything else either.
I cut the cable cord about ten years ago, and have never looked back. It's been great! It's very easy to watch TV online. I use Hulu's free service to watch the two shows I keep up with.
Expanded basic cable cost about 30 dollars per month in my area when I had it turned off, and nowadays runs about 75 per month. I don't know when it went up exactly, but I estimate that I've saved at least 5000 dollars by not having cable.
And the absolute best part about not having cable is... no political ads!
No live sports on HULU. And poor coverage of live news. I couldn't deal with that. At my house news and sports is almost all we watch. We've never had premium cable/satellite, but our second tier is worth to us what we pay for it. Where I live now I pay $65 a month for expanded basic DirecTV which includes our internet connection and through a bundle it gets us discounts on our telephone service. I catch some of the premium cable programs later by getting them from the library, which saves me from paying for HULU or Netflix.
The biggest culprit with constantly increasing cable TV bills is ESPN, so if you're not a sports fan, you can indeed save a ton of $$$ by cutting the cord.
My favorite TV show, 'Person Of Interest' is the only CBS show which they don't stream on their website; I have a huge TV in my bedroom with rabbit ears and a digital converter box connected to it, and the depth of long forgotten programs which I get on it are downright amazing, including many classic shows from the 50s and 60s.
Location: West of the Catalinas East of the Tortolitas
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I have Directv, but I don't have the HBO, Starz, Showtime, Encore, Chill, etc. I opted instead for the Sports Package so I get all the FOX Sports channels, Root Sports, CBS Sports, etc. I am a HUGE sports fan, and I also buy the MLB Extra Innings and Sunday Ticket because my teams are Colorado teams and I live in Tucson. I've been lucky that because of Peyton Manning, most of the Broncos games have been National, but a few aren't and even though the Sunday Ticket is expensive, it's worth it to see the other out-of-market games as well as the Broncos.
Directv here in Tucson doesn't have an internet option. I have CenturyLink for my landline, Directv, internet DSL and Verizon cell all bundled. CenturyLink provides the DSL for internet.
The biggest culprit with constantly increasing cable TV bills is ESPN, so if you're not a sports fan, you can indeed save a ton of $$$ by cutting the cord.
The logical thing would be to put ESPN on the sports tier, but it would mean that sports fans would have to pay roughly $25 per household to get just ESPN. That won't work. Many people who are sports fans don't go to live games because they can't afford it. If TV sports become so expensive they will be forced to watch Sunday night football.
If ESPN gets too expensive, then people will simply go back to watching football in bars. That will probably still cost more in the long run.
It is a chicken and egg thing. Disney moved Monday Night Football to ESPN because they could make more money by charging huge transmission fees to cable companies and selling advertising time. Without the subsidy of the non-sports fans, the business model is not viable, and they would have to put it back on ABC.
The 'problem' with ESPN is that the contracts which ABC/Disney have with everybody who carries it is that it must be a basic channel and cannot be offered as a premium channel a la HBO.
Their fees to televise pro and college sports go up every year, and so does everybody's cable/satellite TV bill as a result.
I reduced my cable service - still have basic. Honestly, I find that's plenty. Sometimes I'll just want to veg in front of the tube and I can always either find something or, better yet, end up reading or doing something else. When I really want to watch but can't find anything, Hulu is great for catching up with old series or just surfing around and finding something new - they have movies too. Also, many of the major stations have their shows available at their own website. There are other places like Hulu but I haven't tried them. Lastly, there are illegal options - plenty of shows and movies available for download if you're willing to risk it. Personally, I'm not, but plenty of people do it.
I posted that back in 2010. Since then, I cut cable entirely and don't even have a TV. I do subscribe to the basic tier of Hulu and just added Netflix as well. Together they're just $15/month as opposed to the over $100 I'd been paying for cable. Plus, now I have more space for books or other materials where the TV was.
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I get 12 channels with an HD over the air antennae. 
