Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Livin Cable Free

Remember that experiment wherein I didn't like paying $50/month for cable so I decided to stop paying $50/month for cable and instead installed a DTV antenna to see what I could get for free? You don't? Well I don't blame ya, that was a whole year ago. You have your own life to lead. Anyway, since it's been a year, let's check in on how it's going.

Just fine. I'm happy to report my trepidation (good word) was unfounded.

First, the channel lineup has changed a little for the better since last year. We now receive about 50 digital channels, but after filtering out the religious/spanish/shopping ones, we have...

So, pretty much everything we like to watch. And the 3 new channels add quite a bit, especially PBS World (I'm diggin History Detectives right now). Naomi still watches mostly PBS & Qubo. Jenny still doesn't know how to turn the TV on. Danielle doesn't know what the TV is.

The surprising thing though is that, regardless of what channels we have (whether or not we have cable), we watch pretty much everything online now because TV's "prime time" is bath/bedtime in our house. By the time Jenny & I sit down to watch something, it's about 9:30pm. Where we used to record the 4-5 shows we follow and watch em at that time, we now just go online to select the episodes we want. No more pre-planning to make sure something gets recorded - simplicity!

Total monthly bill = $0

Number of outages in the past year = 0

Picture quality = HD

I originally committed to going without cable for 3 months. Now, I don't see why I'd go back.
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 27, 2010 at 10:53 AM

    congratulations.....we agree...thanks to jeff the horns did the same....

    now i need you to teach us how to do tv on computer.....when we try - it gets hung up.....

    thanks again for saving us $50 a month.....

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  2. jessica v.January 27, 2010 at 11:36 AM

    I'm so jealous that you guys have Hulu and we still can't watch it. Though we do have BBC's iplayer - which is the same on demand kind of thing, just for BBC programming. A couple of other channels do the same thing, but it's not as extensive or varied as Hulu, so I still think y'all win out.

    Actually, has anyone tried accessing iplayer from the US? It might work from there, though I doubt it because of licensing deals...

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  3. JulietJanuary 27, 2010 at 12:15 PM

    You don't know how much angst that is causing in the network television world...

    We got rid of our cable, but we still have it!! We actually have more channels since the switch. We're just enjoying it while it lasts (until they finally turn it off)!
    Tony watches most of his TV online also. I watch any Law and Order that's on while I'm feeding Christopher, the rest on Netflix Roku.

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  4. jessica v.January 27, 2010 at 1:09 PM

    I listen to the Slate Gabfests now, and on one of the recent Culture Fests, they were talking about Law and Order, and how it's basically like a utility now - like water or electricity, it's just always there, and you just expect to be there when you need it. And everyone appreciates it, while also taking it for granted.
    I miss not having it around.

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  5. JeffJanuary 27, 2010 at 1:21 PM

    "You don't know how much angst that is causing in the network television world."

    Actually, I've been reading alot about that. The networks have started to figure out that offering their content for free online may be undercutting their broadcast revenue and changes may be coming in the future. Hulu and other online viewing methods could potentially change to a subscription based service, similar to Netflix. Could be a while before that happens though. If (or prolly when) it does, I'll reassess my TV setup then.

    Enjoying the the free while it lasts though.

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