The other thing is what happened to those basic plans. They were originally about $5 a month, providing better reception than the antenna and local access channels. That sure disappeared quickly.
I'm very close to giving up cable TV. The basic plan has hispanic stations but not CSPAN. What's holding me back is I'd like to find an antenna (or figure out a placement) that would be a bit more reliable for getting all of the local channels.
We gave up comcast cable a few months back. We get a handful of channels through an antenna but a ton of stuff through netflix. There are tons of series and more kid stuff than my tv loving little ones can watch! And no commercials! Only thing I miss is Fox news. Oh well, you can’t have everything!
Have you seen the picture over broadcast TV?
I was blown away by the superior picture vs. cable. Cable 'compresses' the signal and it loses some of its resolution.
We're about 12-15 miles from the antenna farm. I went online, You Tube actually, and built an antenna w/ coathangers that works very well.
Broadcast TV doesn't have the content we like so I still have U-Verse, but the antenna is waiting in the wings if ever needed.
“...I’d like to find an antenna...”
Most of the digital broadcast signal is in the old UHF range. I use an old bowtie antenna meant for UHF. It looks like a piece of wire fence about 2.5 feet tall by 1.5 wide with some bowtie-shaped pieces of wire in front of it. There are instructions for building one easily found on the web.
Bad weather can interfere with the signal, but I get a variety of stations from 35-40 miles away. Some of the “sideband” stuff is a gas — old 50s tv shows, old movies and so on. For example, our PBS (*spit*) station has four “bands” the main station, then (e.g. ) 57.1, 57.2, and 57.3 where one is kids’ stuff, one is cooking, and so on. All over the air.
(Disclaimer: Your mileage may vary.)