Posted on 01/02/2016 12:29:51 PM PST by aMorePerfectUnion
Like millions of other consumers, Evan Hartstein was fed up with pay TV.
The 40-year-old father of two was paying nearly $250 a month for a bundle of phone, high-speed Internet and hundreds of cable channels that he and his family barely watched.
So Hartstein and his wife recently ditched their standard cable TV subscription and instead signed up for Sling TV, Netflix and a few other streaming services. Their monthly bill was cut in half.
"I got to the end of my rope," said Hartstein, of Scottsdale, Ariz. "I just wasn't getting the value out of it. We'd watch maybe 10 channels total. Why do that when there's this whole world out there where you can pick and choose just the stuff you want?"
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I think one likely effect will be a "deconsolidation". Rather than get cable TV or even Netflix, each channel will have their own subscription. So if you like something on SyFy you'll have to pay for that channel individually. Its programs won't be on Netflix, Amazon or Hulu or any other aggregator's site.
What I would probably do then is subscribe for a month or two, binge watch a year's worth of programming for that channel and then dump it. If many people do that, the channels will respond by requiring long term contracts or driving up month-to-month prices vs. full year pricing.
“Heck there’s plenty of stuff on YouTube for free.”
That includes full-length movies galore.
ME-TV, BBCA, and TCM are the channels I care about and almost never watch much of the others.
I used to love the History Channel and History International of years ago.
Well, there are about 10,400,000 cute cat videos there!
Just another benefit of not being a football fan.
I never had a cord so I’m not a cutter but I miss Sunday NASCAR races. The majority are on cable now. However, this year the cable broadcast races had dismal ratings while broadcast was good rated.
Same here on all points ....
No reason why this guy couldn’t have been a smarter shopper and paid less for the same things elsewhere.
Start your own controversial GoogTube channel!
I read the whole thing and it's just an ad for people to spend money on streaming services instead of cable.
Reminded me of something else. I too am/was a NASCAR fan. The past couple of years haven’t been the best,LOL!
Also car related are the Mecam/Barrett-Jackson auctions. Sometimes they are on broadcast TV or the net but it’s nice to time shift them or even watch the reruns.
I subscribe to Netflix.
My landlord subscribes to Charter Cable standard package and since the local analog cable service ended last month, I picked up a digital set top box for my HDTV from the local company office for free and I got a year’s free service on the box. After that, I pay $6.99 a month to continue to rent it.
I’m happy I got the best of both worlds.
http://tvpc.us/Channel.php?ChannelID=25735
Here is one way, quality is not great, but viewable.
I know of 2 other ways also that reside in a gray area.
If you live in an urban area, Netflix and Amazon Prime are all you really need.
If you live in the boondocks as I do, cable is your only real viewing choice since its too far for digital antenna to receive free quality signals.
YMMV.
I am clise to, however I have a few favorite shows that aren’t available to stream yet.
Depends on where you live - in an urban metro area OTA digital antenna reception will pick up free TV stations.
In a rural area, forget it. You’re better off with cable.
I have used ROKU 1 and 3 and found an increasing number of ‘channels’. Some of the movie channels are ad-supported. I have never had much luck with them — Crackle, Hulu, and some others.
Inevitably, into the movie, they break for ad inserts — 30 seconds to 3 minutes. With nearly every movie, after some ad insertion, the stream locks up. One stream lock-up even caused ROKU to reboot every time I got to that point in the streaming.
Then, trying to return to the segment of the movie where the lock-up happened, they play nearly twice as many commercials. And the stream locks up again.
I prefer paying a reasonable fee (around $10 each) for Netflix and Amazon Prime and have NO commercial interruptions at all. I also get HBO GO.
I have not yet cut the cable, but am tempted.
Current season TV shows aren’t available for streaming.
But you can watch back seasons of shows and entire seasons of shows no longer in production on a streaming service.
I have a similar problem. I live in an apartment complex, so outside antenna is not an option for over-air broadcasts. I live far enough from broadcast sources that an inside digital antenna cannot pick them up.
I would watch OAN if they were in HD, but SD on my 65” screen is like watching tv with my glasses off.
The biggest problem with cord cutting is the ability to get those ten channels you really watch. I like History, History2, Military History, Discovery, TCM and a few more. I’m not sure I can get them without a package. I would love to dump every sports channel. I know I’m paying a lot for them and I never watch them.
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