Has anyone cut the cable cord in Kailua, Oahu?

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by Mark.ca

Good point about the commercials, i almost forgot. I remember watching movies and on some chanels they stop every 15 min for commercials which would run for about 8 minutes. Can someone explain why we put up with this? Are we paying for commercials or for the movies?

If you're watching a commercial broadcast station over the air you're paying nothing, and the commercial advertisers pay for the programming.

If you're watching a commercial broadcast station via cable, you're paying the cable company to relay that broadcast channel to you, and the commercial advertisers are paying for the content.

If you're watching a cable channel via cable, you are paying for the programming through your cable bill.

[Mark.ca]

Originally Posted by OpenD

If you're watching a cable channel via cable, you are paying for the programming through your cable bill.

That is what i thought...we are paying the cable co to watch commercials. They get paid by us and also the advertising co's. I thought cable started on the idea that if you pay for programing you should get only programing and not get flooded with all the junk. Are people in US rally so in love with commercials? I know this is the norm with all the tv programs these days but should we just accept this "normality"?...and evan more...pay for it?! Ridiculous!

[OpenD]

No, you misunderstood me... if you are watching original cable programming you don't get commercials.

Channels that have commercials are broadcast stations, and you are merely paying the cable company for bringing you that signal.

[davephan]

You don't have to watch commercials on any TV channels if you record all the programs and channels you normally watch. Most people watch very few channels, even if they can receive hundreds of channels. That's part of the problem where the cable companies force you to subscribe to 'packages' where 95% of the channels in the packages are never watched. The problem is most people 'accept' most of the channels they subscribe to and pay for are never watched, yet they continue to pay every month. If you record almost everything you might watch, you can nearly completely eliminate TV commercials from your life. Quit watching movies broadcast on the movie channels that have about 22 commercial blocks per movie. Instead, stream the movies on Netflix, Amazon, or some other streaming vendor. Streaming movies is very inexpensive once you already have broadband, compared to how much it costs you to waste your valuable time watching commercials.

When you change your TV viewing habits by not watching TV 'live' anymore, skipping the commercials, your TV viewing experience will drastically improve. A video recording system can have intelligence built in, so it will learn what you like and don't like, so you don't have to program each recording manually. The programs are recorded automatically. I record a lot of TV that I might watch. Most of the TV I record is actually never watched, then deleted. However, the programs are available to watch commercial free if I choose to watch them and have time to watch them. The commercials will still be there for someone else to watch who that is too lazy to record TV, or doesn't want to invest in a video recording system. Let those other people support the TV advertisers, not you!