Would be a more encouraging article if people were cutting their Netflix and streaming services as well.
I only watch TV in hotel rooms as I haven’t had cable TV or TV channels per se for 25 years—I really only miss the Olympics, the Oscars, and the Presidential Debates.
When I’m in hotels I like the Cooking Channel (”Chopped”) and that’s pretty much it.
I’ve never watched the news or Fox or CNN or anything—and I stopped getting a daily paper in Oct 2020. I get all my news from Free Republic now, and from Scott Adams, and from Steve Bannon’s War Room. That’s more than enough news.
Their "news" is all left wing propaganda.
Sports has become too politicized to endure.
So, what's to watch?
It’s the only way to go.
I have never regretted going all wireless internet. Not one whit.
The amount of content available is simply astounding, with about 10% of it in UHD.
I subscribe to HBOMax, Amazon Prime and Netflix.
And I’ll never run out of stuff to watch in my lifetime, even after filtering the junk.
And you can put your TVs anyplace you have power.
Going to the Internet is not “cutting the cord”.
It’s having the cord surgically attached to your rectum.
Might as well have Winston’s Television installed.
Of course, this is bad news for cable and satellite companies, but I’m not sure what it says much about the viewing habits of Americans.
I “cut the cord” more than ten years ago, but subscribed to a streaming service during college football season most years since. At first the streaming services were a bargain, but the prices have increased steadily since.
I used to get all the channels I wanted from Sing TV for about $25 per month. Now they’ve split their service into two offerings and it’d cost significantly more.
And I used Youtube TV for $35.00 per month four years ago and now the same basic service cost $65.00 per month. Several multi-channel streaming services are now around the price.
The costs of multi-channel streaming services has increased steadily and that doesn’t even take into account services like Netflix and the traditional paid movie channels like HBO.
Local news that people watch on cable/satellite and streaming comes from broadcast. The CW and Peacock have made the jump to streaming from broadcast, so broadcast programming has a larger footprint than 10% whatever the delivery system is for the programming.
Roku and Sling
There is really no such thing as a "digital" antenna - the same old antennas of yesteryear will pick up broadcast signals - and of course these channels are still very much "broadcasting" - not sure why he would claim broadcast television was "replaced" - the signal type was changed from analog to digital, but not the concept of broadcast television stations. Some newer antennas come with newer technology to amplify signals to make channels more stable because with digital broadcasts either you have the station, or you don't, but the signals are still picked up in the same way on VHF and UHF bands. A lot of antennas on the market make a lot of bogus promises and may pick up next to nothing - you really have research to make sure it is a quality product.
We just dumped Comcast cable tv — we’ve had it here since 1983! Cut the cord just shy of 40 years. I would have never gotten it in the first place, but my wife is a sports nut and wanted her live sports games.
Unfortunately Comcast is our internet service provider, so I had to keep that. We had AT&T for Internet until ten years ago, but their reliability, quality and customer support were the absolute worst of any company I’ve dealt with. It took them forever to fix the squirrels-eating-the-wires and squirrels-in-the-pedestal problems. Our DSL service would often drop to 300 to 500 kbps — yes, kilobits! At least the Comcast Internet over cable service is fast and reasonably reliable.
The Internet + TV + phone service was over $200/month. I cut that in half by getting rid of the cable TV part.
I wish I could find a decent alternative ISP. I will never go back to AT&T. Based on their current reviews, it doesn’t sound like they’ve improved at all.
I use Netflix and Amazon streaming. I also rip a lot of DVDs and Blu Rays to my home server.
For years, decades even, the public demanded cable providers offer cafeteria type selections. Big cable gave us the Finger.
They have finally got what they deserved. Streaming Internet is the only way to watch TV.
We cut the cord two years ago. Put up a regular antenna and we still never turn the tube on.
bkmk
We no longer use cable or satellite. Just a big waste of money.
I had to drop xfinity because they would not sell me internet without a cable package as a bundle. The bundle of TV and internet was less than internet alone so TV would have been basically free, but I don’t want CNN ESPN MSNBC or any other network to count me as a subscriber. Luckily I didn’t have any important email accounts with them.
If I want to watch anything, I watch online. I haven’t had a TV since 2009. If I want to ‘watch’ what is on TV/Cable, I go to ustvgo.tv which has almost all subscription channels and has cinemax, hbo, starz, showtime, tcm movie channels. The one thing that is required by more and more of the channels is a VPN which, is a benefit to the user. My monthly bill is only for my internet.
another thread about people’s utility bills, and why everyone should give a damn.
“look, everybody! I just traded woke cable for woke streaming services, and I think I accomplished something!”
I pay for YouTube premium which gets rid of the ads and includes YouTube music which I love. $12
I have Netflix mainly because the wife wants it, and my adult kids use my subscription, and I use their Disney+. $17 for both.
HBO max comes with my At&t cellphone plan. And I also have Apple TV for $5
I used to get DirectTV for essentially free but even with the retiree discount, it was going to be $140 per month. Nope.
Does anyone have experience using the new TV antennas 50 or more miles from stations? I’m tempted to try one, but am 60 or so miles from most stations and don’t know anyone who is using them.