After HBO Game of Thrones is over this year - I am thinking of dropping cable TV - and just keeping Internet into the house. Has anyone in our community done this already? I have Netflix, and am thinking of getting the Apple TV for shows and streaming, and a digital antenna for local broadcasts. We are just not watching much TV - so I could be saving $1,200 a year (which will go into kid's college funds).
Any thoughts or experiences?
As an addendum - if only I could subscribe to HBO Go without having cable!!
I am pretty much cable free right now. Combination of Netflix and Hulu gives you a pretty wide-range net of content. But the main thing is, you pretty much have to give up on the idea of watching remotely current content because Hulu is losing more and more "current" content as time passes. For me, this is fine because there is a ton of sci-fi content like Farscape or BSG that I have yet to see so I get to watch that whenever I want. But that might not be so great for you.
(Granted, there are alternative sources...).
But personally, I'm happy with just Netflix and Hulu. I have access to a ton of content I've never seen and on Netflix anyway, its getting better and better every month. I get to watch content when I want to and not at the demand of some TV schedule. Which for me is great because my schedule pretty much conflicts with every show on right now so I had to move off of it anyway. You also have far less commercials (except hulu).
But give up any idea of watching current content without cable. Not all shows are like this, (Fringe should be viewable on your local broadcast if I'm not mistaken) but it seems that until Hulu/Netflix can get better deals, this is how it is right now. No doubt one day it'll get better, but you'll have to wait it out until it does.
I should also add, I subscribe to plenty of YouTube channels to bring in content like gaming videos, music videos, parody stuff, news or whatever. This isn't TV, but I enjoy it and you can watch it on your Apple TV.
King
Dropped my cable 3 years ago when I moved.
I don't really miss it - there's to much else to do.
Of course I don't have any kids at home so I win.
I have not had cable or TV antenna for at least five years now and my wife and I never lack for things to watch. We decided to invest the $60.00 a month we were paying for cable into building our DVD/Blu-Ray library and we now have quite a large collection. We also subscribe to Netflix online streaming but honestly the content is rather poor. They have some good shows but it could be so much better. Now I have to say that I do pay for the high tier Verizon Fios internet and it runs us around $55.00 a month to have the speed but well worth it. Especially when doing streaming video. Do I miss not having cable? Never even think about it because we just have too many options and the investment of putting that money into building our library has given us something tangible.
Kevin
If you have an Xbox or Roku it's way easy to give up cable...everythings on Netflix eventually and Hulu Plus has TV shows.
6 years ago, when the satellite installer came to put the dish on my roof, he forgot some kind of attachment parts required for our roof. He asked us to call and reschedule the install.
We never did.
We get by on Netflix, Hulu, and complete season box sets (damn non-streaming Big Bang Theory!). Apps installed on the Wii make it really easy to manage.
Go for it! You can always go back to cable and probably talk them into a sweet deal if you really miss it...
I did this for about a year and found that it was much cheaper. There are about 10 shows I watch on a regular basis and you can get most of them for free or pay about $30 on amazon. That comes to roughly $15/month. Most websites - TNT, FOX are making arrangements with the cable companys so you just login with your cable account and you have next day access. When that happens, I'll probably drop cable and go "a la cart". My wife's favorite channel? Black screen (i.e. off) :)
One of the reasons I keep cable is I still enjoy keeping up on shows as they air. I don't like spoilers, and some shows that I love like "The Walking Dead" and "Breaking Bad" have such big events that happen at times that I don't want to have that spoiled by learning about it months or even years before I see it. Plus, because of doing the podcast I like to be able to report on current TV and movies too. So, for me it's still worth it.
Yeah, I am really torn. My wife and I only really watch HBO - she is not a Game of Thrones fan, but loves Curb Your Enthusiasm, and is a big Sex and The City fan - but these we can get on DVD. The kids never have any time for TV - and we limit them. The news I can stream from Internet sites.
Has anyone heard any news or rumors about HBO offering subscriptions? That is the only thing that makes me want to hang on.
I think it will be awhile before networks start offering a'la cart services where you can pick just one channel to subscribe to. The deals they have with cable giants like Comcast will stop that for some time to come. I also wish I could pick and choose the networks I receive. I only watch a handful of the networks on my cable package of hundreds of channels.
We talked about dumping our feed when we moved but at the point that they offered me free phone and broadband for a year, I hung on since the cost 'all in' is just as cheap as the phone line/broadband alone would have been.
Whether I could have stuck it through, I don't know since I nearly took the other option of simply changing provider.
I've gotten too hooked on the Xfinity App and HBO Go for my iPad to ever consider dropping cable at this point. So much to choose to watch, combined with Netflix there's just always something. I try not to think about the fact that I probably actually watch less than 2% of what I'm paying for. It's a crazy expense and definitely pure luxury but I wouldn't give it up at this stage of my life unless I absolutely had to.
For me in Canada, I don't think I am at the point where I could drop cable. We are blocked to things like Hulu, and our Netflix Library is still weak in my opinion. Some of the shows we can get streaming online, but others cannot. Also I do like to watch things like AutoRacing and NHL hockey so that would be hard to find without cable. I am thinking of cutting back what I get right now, as I pretty much have a max package. I get a movie channel, but a few years ago the cable company offered another premium movie channel, so basically it has split the movies between the two, where in the past I got them all on just the one channel. So far the majority of movies I would be interested in are on the channel I subscribe to, but if the percentage gets larger on the other channel, then I will drop my channel and find another way to get the movies. My wife subscribes to a Chinese channel, that is very expensive each month. I don't speak Chinese, but can tell the program quality is not very good, as she watches it mostly for news, the other thing that bugs me is it is still in SD as well.
I don't think I could ever drop Cable all together, but if offerings of shows or movies get better from other sources in the future, I could see myself cutting back a lot.
Actually the Mandarin language channel strikes a chord here. My mother-in-law only speaks Russian, and when she visits us - sometimes 3 to 5 months at a time - I pay for a Russian languages package for her. She gets 3 channels, and it runs about an additional $30 US a month.