We cancelled our cable yesterday – the first time since 1997, when I lived with my parents on the farm, that I haven’t had a TV cable running into my dorm/apartment/house. So far, I don’t miss it.
Part of it was that neither of the local cable options offers a basic package – $70/month is the least-expensive subscription available, and it goes up really quickly from there. But $70+ would certainly be worth it for something we get a lot of use out of. That used to be the case for cable TV, back before a high-pressure new job, a 108 year-old house to work on, and a silly little monkey who’s decided to stick around for a while.
In the last few months, we realized, we’ve been paying a lot and getting very little. We watch TV series on DVD because Josie doesn’t have a schedule that allows for a lot prime-time viewing, and the shows we regularly watch (The Office, 30 Rock, Brothers & Sisters, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy) are all on broadcast TV and Hulu (plus, with the switch to digital-over-the-air, our local networks will come in better quality than they would on cable). The Daily Show & The Colbert Report are the only cable shows I’ll really miss, and I watch those online more often than not anyway.
So we cut the cord yesterday, and Missy says Time-Warner was surprisingly pleasant about it. I’m sure there will be things I realize I miss soon (I had a pang of regret about HGTV last night, for example. Oh, Kendra Todd – has there even been a worse host than you?), but so far, cutting the cord has been an altogether positive experience.
Ooooh, exciting! The one problem I’ve discovered with digital over the air is with reception – with analog, when the signal gets a bit weak, the picture gets a bit fuzzy and you can still hear the sound. With digital, the sound drops out. This is profoundly annoying. My dad’s been working on various antenna and cord arrangements and it’s gotten better.
We haven’t had cable in a while. I wish they would set a price for each channel and let you pick and choose. Seems like I am always forced to pay for 25 ESPNs if I want history international and National Geographic Channel. We never were steady watchers of shows and would catch what we liked when we could. We watch mostly DVDs series and movies. We like that because we aren’t at someone else’s beck and call of when to watch. I used to love to watch the news all day but now I just watch it online.
Good for you! We haven’t had cable for years, and rarely miss it. We’ve got Netflix for most of what we watch. We’ve had the same issue with over-the-air digital that towwas mentions — instead of degrading gracefully, DTV rapidly becomes unwatchable.
My parents cut their satellite cord after the only thing that it was really turned on for was “Project Runway”.
Unfortunately, cutting the cord didn’t go so smooth with them. My mom called and cancelled on a Monday, with confirmation. Whe unfortunately had to yell at the guy since he couldn’t understand why someone would want to cancel the service.
Then two weeks later, she discovers that they hadn’t cancelled anything, she calls back and is told that my father had to call since he is the main person on the plan. He calls and has to again get across that they wanted to cancel retroactive to two weeks prior.
Finally, someone understands and it is all clear now.
Hey, I think that’s great. I have to be honest though-not sure I’d do it. It is too expensive. I can still remember paying $20.00 a month.
I disagree with towwas – I love the way when digital broadcast gets fuzzy, it goes quiet. I hate the noisy static that accompanied analog static, which, in my last residence occured quite frequently.
We got our box in January or February, and it seemed that the quality of the reception went downhill slowly over the months. I’m not sure why it happened. Between the increased number of channels, tv shows on YouTube, and the local public library, we have our media covered. Maybe in a few years, when we have more money, I’ll see about cable again.
My problem is, it’s impossible to follow what people are talking about with bad reception on digital. There can be a dozen micro-drop-outs in a few seconds. It also makes music sound terrible. I’d much prefer just a dab of fuzz mixed in. I didn’t get noisy static with analog – maybe the airwaves are different here in DC.
I got rid of my tv in the spring or so, because it was huge, ancient, and in the way of pulling up carpet, etc. I planned to replace it with a much smaller one. So I eventually bring home something that smells like brain-rotting plastic when it’s unboxed, back to the store with that.
Meanwhile, I am noticing, most anything I want to watch is online, and I am saving $40 a month, that is, $480 a year, by not having cable. So far, no tv has reappeared. All I miss is having it on for company occasionally, that is harder to do with a laptop
and certainly not worth $40 a month.
p.s. I did subscribe to netflix, which is wonderful for not only current stuff, but for old movies and old tv shows. Plus it is amazingly fast, they must have a friend at the post office. I am still saving money over cable and can even buy DVDs from time to time and it’s still cheaper.
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