Ask the Readers: Best Alternatives to Cable Television?
Published on - July 20th, 2012 (by J.D. Roth) I’ve written two major articles here at Get Rich Slowly about how to cut costs on cable television. In March 2007, I wrote about cheap alternatives to cable television, and in February 2009, I followed that up by describing how I cut my television bill in half. But it’s been more than three years since I visited this topic, and I’ve started to get email from readers who want an update.
But it’s not just readers. I’ve been dating a woman who has frugal tendencies (awesome!) and she’s been toying with the idea of giving up cable so that she can save more for a new car (which is an example of conscious spending, of course). But Kim is concerned that if she gave up cable, she wouldn’t be able to watch some of the things she loves.
For instance, the Olympics are just around the corner. If you want to watch the Olympics but don’t have cable (or satellite) television, how do you manage? Is there a way to watch the Olympics on line?
And what about other sporting events? Is there a good way to watch football or baseball or soccer on your computer? What about special events like the Kentucky Derby? Two years ago, I paid something like $80 for the official Major League Baseball iPad app, which was supposed to allow me to watch (nearly) every game during the season. Turns out, though, that the Seattle Mariners were blacked out here in Portland so the app was worthless to me. Lesson learned. What if I wanted to watch the Mariners today? How would I do it without cable TV?
Kim likes to watch the news every morning. She can put it on in the background while she gets ready for work. But is there a way to get the news without paying for television? (Yes, I know there are broadcast stations that might have news programs. But what about alternatives to cable programming?)
So, I’m curious: What are the best alternatives to cable television? Do you get your shows via the internet? The library? Some other source? If you’ve managed to cut your ties with cable, how do you watch sports? How do you watch the news? Are there free (and legal) options out there? (Answers, of course, will vary by country. If you’re not in the U.S., feel free to share how you get your TV fix via the internet.)
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For the Olympics – or other sports that get broadcast on major networks – there’s always over-the-air broadcasting. I have a $7 set of “rabbit ears” that pulls in most of the network stations quite clearly (except during thunderstorms).
Otherwise, we have Netflix and Amazon Prime (which we have for the shipping, not the tv/movies). We don’t get everything we want… but we get most of it, and it costs less than $10/month.
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I have a Clearstream antenna ($50) which brings in close to 100 stations for free. I live between Los Angeles and San Diego. I point the antenna towards the L.A. area. The picture quality on some channels is true HD at 1080i, 720 or 480i. Some channels are foreign audio but most are in English. I dumped the cable about 5 years ago; however I don’t get pay per view, ESPN etc… I have a PS3 and can get Next Flix, Hulu and Vudu all have different policy and charges. I don’t rent DVD’s which saves me hundreds of dollars per year.
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I wish antenna was an option for us. For whatever reason we’re only in range of two channels for antenna, and neither comes in with any sort of quality (and they’re not exactly channels that make us jump for joy). We actually don’t have cable (or satellite) and rely on internet for video, but it would have been nice to have SOMETHING for guests…
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US TV Now. You can get for $19 for first three months and $29 thereafter the following channels. ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, PBS, My9, A&E, Animal Planet, Bravo, Cartoon Network, CNBC, CNN, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, ESPN, Food Network, FX, Fox News, History, Lifetime, National Geographic, Nickelodeon, Spike, Syfy, TBS, TNT, USA.
I do this and Netflix for movies.
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How about a good old antenna? You can surely watch the Olympics on your NBC affiliate. I don’t know how well antennas work in your area, but it’s worth a try. In our area, it works great.
Antenna, Roku and Netflix are all good options.
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I use an antenna and it works great! Any other special programs I find online for free at sites like Hulu or I have a netflix (streaming only) subscription where I can watch most of my favorite tv shows. Honestly, once I “cut the cord” from cable I did not miss all of those things I thought I could not live without. I would advise Kim or anyone else to just do it! Cancel the cable and try it for a month or so. If you really hate it you can always get it back.
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Good news! This is in fact the first year you’ll be able to watch the Olympics in full online, or so I’ve heard repeatedly on the radio.
I haven’t personally had cable in over a decade. Don’t get me wrong – I freaking love TV. I will watch the hell out of it. But in the same vein as yesterday’s article, it doesn’t actually bring much value to my life. If we want to watch something, we find it online (usually through appropriate means… usually), see if it comes in on the antenna, or do without. We’re not big sports people, and though we like to catch the local news, we can do fine without, so those challenges we don’t worry about much.
If Kim has the news on while she’s getting ready, she’s probably just listening anyway, not really watching, so maybe pop on the local NPR station? They probably won’t have a whole half hour of local news, but there’s some, and it’s good listening in the morning.
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NBC is streaming all of their Olympic coverage online BUT requires you to sign in with a cable or satellite account to access it. They don’t want to piss off any of their business partners. So it’s no good to us cable cutters.
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Oh really? That was definitely not a point they made particularly clear. Laaame.
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Well NBC is majority owned by Comcast and they did spend billions of dollars to the IOC for the the rights, without ad revenues how are they going pay for it.
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Being an internet subscriber through Comcast, Verizon, or some other cable provider may be good enough, although it’s near impossible to know that for sure.
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You have to have cable. I have Comcast internet and phone but not cable and I can’t get to the Olympics stuff.
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John,
Becka’s point was NBC’s failure to clearly state a cable or satellite account is necessary to watch the Olympics; she did not lament the fact that they charge for it.
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And not only a basic cable account, one that gets both CNBC and MSNBC. In my area, that means a Comcast Digital Delux account for $70/month. Eech.
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Yes to NPR! I’m totally addicted to it and can’t stand watching a talking head give the news anymore. IMO, NPR gives much higher quality coverage of national and international news. I do get about 10 minutes of local news in the morning, and that is enough for me.
We dropped the cable several months ago, BTW, and I don’t miss it at all. But I could never drop NPR.
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NPR I could live without forever. Wayyy to liberal for me! God.
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Regarding the MLB app and baseball’s draconian blackout rules, I’ve had a lot of success with my Android tablet using a proxy service. I pay $1/month for a low-end service. I’m certain I’ve seen similar services for the iPad ranging from $1-10/month. Since I’m currently travelling in sub-Saharan Africa and Netflix/Hulu won’t work here the proxy also helps me get around that (when the lousy internet cooperates).
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Presuming you don’t give up internet access, ESPN3 / WatchEspn.com is a good tool to watch a lot of sports programming. You login with your username for your internet providers website, they authenticate you have service with them, and now you can watch programs on the ESPN family of networks, even things on ABC like the NBA Finals. I did this when we switched to the “local basic” level of television.
I think YMMV depending on what provider you have, I know this works for Verizon FIOS in the mid-atlantic.
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Cut cable a few years ago, but we still watch a lot of TV.
We have Netflix and we watch stream shows every day. We also use Hulu, but haven’t yet found a need to upgrade to Hulu+. I don’t think there are any current shows we follow that we can’t get through some means.
We have rabbit ears and watch most sporting events over the air or through ESPN3/U. If our university’s basketball team is playing and it’s available for some reason, we go to the house of a friend with cable. (We invited them over often so it’s reciprocal.)
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I’m interested in the new Nexus Q from Google http://www.google.com/nexus/#/q that can stream media from Google Play and uses an Android phone as the controller.
Pay big upfront but then access media on-demand, which should be cheaper than cable.
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I have cable but often the Tampa Bay Bucs are blacked out so I watch live sports online and hook up my laptop via HDMI cable. The site is firstrowsports.eu
There are popups and you have to be careful not to click them, also need to install latest adobe flash player.
You can also watch other live sports like baseball, basketball, motorsports and I’m thinking probably the Olympics will be broadcast too.
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I’ve been toying with the idea of ditching cable too. We don’t have as many options here in Canada as in the U.S., but “rabbit ears”, Netflix and online episodes on TV station websites could do the trick.
The problem is, I’d be looking at spending between $20-$40 more per month for an upgraded internet package (I have “lite” right now), plus $8/month for Netflix, plus I’d have to purchase something to stream the video to my TV – $100-$150. I’m crunching the numbers to see if I’d actually come out ahead — and if online TV and movies allow me more selection, not less. (We don’t get the same variety here thanks to copyright agreements.)
I’m wondering when people talk about how much they spend on TV or movies if they count their internet costs as part of the overall cost or not. In my case, it makes a big difference. I’m curious to hear how other people do it!
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Elizabeth, our cable bill was $115 per month. Our internet bill was $25, and we did choose to upgrade to a faster internet service that cost us about $20 more the first year, and now $40 more thereafter (we don’t have many internet options where I live, so it’s hard to shop around for a better deal). We already had Netflix, so that was not an added expense for us, but let’s pretend it was another $8. That’s $48 instead of $115/month. We did have a couple of one-time expenses (the digital antenna at $60 and upgrading the RAM on the computer at $30), but those paid for themselves by the end of the second month we cut the cable cord. And we have purchased I think 3 seasons of various shows on Amazon Instant over the past 3 years that were maybe $25 each. If I do the math for 3 years and calculate in our extra monthly and one-time expenses, cutting cable has saved us $1587 in three years’ time. That’s just our experience, though – yours may vary based on what’s available to you!
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It’s always annoyed me when some people boast about how much they save by not having cable, but gloss over the fact that they have high-speed internet which in some areas is still pretty expensive. Or they justify it by saying someone needs it because they work from home. Or their job pays for it. Good for them, I guess.
When I let cable go, I could only afford dial-up at the time and I couldn’t stream anything. I hated the converter box/antenna combination so I just did without tv altogether. It sucked because I like golf and I missed all the majors for a few years. When I finally had room in the budget I upgraded to DSL but I categorized the cost as part of my entertainment budget, just like I would if I had cable.
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I live in the Boston area, and it is cheaper for my husband and I to buy the Comcast basic cable TV and internet package than just the internet. We pay 65.00 for basic cable + internet. Basic cable gives us about 25 stations, mostly local and PBS, which is fine with us. We also pay 5.15 a month for Netflix – this covers one movie at a time, with a maximum of 3 movies per month. That works for us too – we can always go to the library if we want to watch more movies. For news, we listen to NPR on the radio. I find that listening to the radio is much more productive than watching TV – I can clean the house, cook supper, etc while listening to the radio.
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What if Kim broke down what each program she watches costs her? Then, she can decide if what she is paying is worth it.
We pay $89.99/month for our bundled services and for us, $30 for the cable portion is completely worth it. I would guess that I watch $1/day worth of TV. I honestly don’t know what I would do without HBO. I love Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Girls and for an hour a day I will rot my brain and watch True Blood. Also, Walking Dead, Mad Men, Archer, and the list could go on and on.
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We are in metro Boston too- we actually spoke with Comcast yesterday about going internet only and dropping our basic cable (we have been traking our TV habits and only watch 5-7 hours a month). Internet only is $3 less so going with Netflix instead actually costs more per month so we are keeping the cable bundle.
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Oh, I forgot about the bundle discount! Right now I get 10% off my services for having cable, internet and phone with the same provider. That will drop to 5% if I ditch the cable.
Thanks for the reminder!
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I’m in Boston too, and it drives me crazy that it’s cheaper to have cable than not. (Or I think once you’ve passed the introductory rate time period maybe it’s only like $10 more.) But I still don’t have/use cable, mostly because I just don’t want to. (I didn’t watch TV growing up, and while I want video content now, I don’t really have any desire to be limited by a TV schedule or pay for a DVR service. Or get sucked into watching things that I actually don’t care about.)
My strategy is mostly just to avoid getting interested in things I think are bad for me or wastes of time/money. It’s a lot easier to go without cable if you already hate sports and most general programming. I watch TV shows (Mad Men, Veronica Mars, Pushing Daisies, Breaking Bad) after the fact on disk or Netflix streaming–usually with one particular friend of mine–and occasionally find myself hooked on something and following it on Hulu or the network’s website (Glee). There’s plenty of other stuff I might watch if it were on (random TLC shows, Discovery Channel) but don’t miss if it’s not there. I’ve always gotten my news in print form via the internet, so I don’t miss that either.
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Elizabeth
I live in Canada too so I guess we have some of the same issues. I have to be honest though – I have lived with out cable most of my adult life – only when there is a male in the household who wants to watch sports has cable been paid for.
I have been using Netflix for over a year now and it is, by FAR the best value for anything I have ever purchased at $8 a month. Sure the movie and tv selections are not up-to-date but I have found myself watching programs I never watched when they were current or finding obscure movies that I love. I use Primus as my internet provider and for now they do not put a limit on my download/uploads so I can watch and download as much content as I like. I bundle my internet service with my home phone service but I think the internet service on it’t own is only around $40. And, assuming you have a laptop all you need is a cable to connect it to your television. I think this is TOTALLY worth the price and is FAR cheaper than the cable options available here in Canada. Plus, odds are you are getting your cable from a company such as Bell or Rogers, both of which are notorious for bad service and inflated fees/costs so get out while you can!
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Nice to hear from a fellow Canadian, Carlee!
I could tell you stories about dealing with Rogers and Bell! Glad to hear Netflix is working out well. I’m looking into alternative ISPs like Tek Savvy to see if I can upgrade my internet on the cheap.
Right now what’s keeping me married to cable is that my old (and I do mean OLD) TV doesn’t have the right hook ups for my computer or a web-enabled device. (I really hate watching TV on my laptop.) Now that it’s time to replace the TV, I can look at more options for TV and movies. (My apartment building makes it hard to to over the air, sadly).
My favourite way to watch TV shows is on DVD because there’s no commercials and because I don’t have to wait for the next episode! From what I hear from friends, they love Netflix for the same reason.
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I admit, I don’t really count the incremental cost for high-speed internet access. As a frequent gamer, to me it’s already a part of the entertainment budget. But even if I wasn’t, I certainly place some value in faster than dialup speeds to access the internet, so the entire cost wouldn’t be just for the sake of streaming TV. Also using it for a VOIP landline replacement also helps offset the cost.
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Thanks, everyone, for the responses! I’m on a grandfathered “lite” package which gives me 25 gigabytes — though on average I only use 12-15. I could squeeze in some Netflix or streaming video without upgrading, but overage charges are $4/gigabyte — rounded up, of course!
Certainly lots of numbers to crunch!
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JFYI, that “something to stream the video to my TV” will cost under $20: a VGA to TV converter. I use it sometimes, and although the quality isn’t great, it was a cheap option.
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We’ve been without cable for going on 3 years now. Honestly, I have very rarely missed it. We bought a $60 digital antenna which gets broadcast stations quite clearly (we get CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, and PBS), and we use that for watching most sporting events. Sports are hard to find broadcast live online, so for games that we really care about that are only on cable (like when the Washington Redskins are playing during Monday Night Football, for example), we’ll go out to our favorite bar where we know the game will be playing (and that coincidentally has $5 gourmet burgers on Monday nights). All the networks have news in the morning anyway, too, so that doesn’t seem like a problem to me. As for the Olympics, they’re always on a major network you can get over the air (usually NBC, and that seems to be true again this year). And if she’s worried about missing something, there are DVRs that can be made to work with broadcast channels. We’ve never invested in one, but it can be done. Hell, if she’s got an old VCR and some blank tapes, she can set that to record too, like we did in the old days, for cheap or free!
As for other shows, we watch Netflix streaming all the time, and get DVDs from them as needed, too. We also occasionally watch the free stuff on Amazon Prime (though it’s usually also available on Netflix and we prefer that interface) or for shows we really care about (ahem, Doctor Who for me), we will pay for access to them on Amazon’s instant video. For network shows that we’re all caught up on and want to watch in real time but don’t want to record or be home when they air (Grimm, The Office, Parks & Recreation, etc.), we use Hulu, the free version, which can be accessed by any computer and is totally free as long as you can keep up with the shows you want to watch before they expire. If you want to pay for Hulu Plus, it’s pretty cheap and will let you access all the shows (after they’ve expired for the free version) and will let you watch them on devices other than a computer (iPhone, iPad, X-Box, Wii, etc.).
We have an old computer hooked up to our TV that’s used only for media, which we upgraded the RAM to make it faster and stripped everything off of it except an internet browser and iTunes, and we use that to watch most TV-by-computer and listen to music since it uses our nice sound system. That way neither of us ever has to give up access to the computers we use for other stuff when we want to watch TV.
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I,ve done the same for the last 3 years too, and do not miss cable or the cable company. I spend $50 a month for 4G internet service. It does the job. I also have my TV hooked up to a computer when I need to watch something online. My blue ray player has an option for netflix, but the quality of the movies is terrible. So I didn’t go beyond the free trial. Ditch the cable and save 15-25 a month!
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We have DirecTv, which might not sound like a frugal option and it probably is not. But I post to share that we have kept our DirecTv bill the same for the last 6 years. Every time the bill creeps up we call and they give us some special that lasts 6 mos. Then we call again, also they give us $10 off our bill for every person we refer and the person we refer also gets $10 off.
It takes a little bit of effort in that we have to call twice a year, but keeps our expenses down. We also utilize our local library for DVDs and since we have HBO we use the HBO Go app on my iPad to watch any HBO movies or shows, I love the shows, on demand for no additional costs. We don’t have a NetFlix account since we have DirecTv.
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We do this too with Comcast. (Tip: If you’re calling to get your bill down, hit upgrade on the phone prompt – those agents have all the current specials at their fingertips).
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I ditched cable last year and haven’t looked back. Here’s what I do:
$50/month for 15 mbps cable internet. You want a decent speed to be able to stream a good quality picture.
$100 for a box like the Roku which allows streaming of Netflix, Hulu+, and Amazon Prime video. In addition I can stream NHL games which is super critical for me. I live in Boston, but am a huge Flyers fan. I get all of the Flyers game except the ones they show on VS., NBC or games against the Bruins.
$50 for a really good HDTV antenna. This allows me to watch all the major networks for free! Including the few hockey games on NBC I want to see. I plug the antenna into my HDHomerun (AWESOME PRODUCT) and I can watch the broadcast networks on any PC over wifi. Also the HDHomerun accepts a cable card which your cable company will provide you for about $4/month. This alone can save you lots of mula by not needing their cable box, which can be $20/month depending on the kind you rent.
So I spend about $70/month for cable internet, Netflix and Amazon Prime (Which includes free shipping!). Compare that to $110 for HD cable (with internet and an HD DVR) plus another $10 for Netflix I’d be paying anyway. So, $120-$70 = I’m saving about $50/month by cutting cable.
If Kim is really tech savvy, I’d recommend a home theater PC. It’s a bigger up front investment, but gives you so many options. I built my own HTPC, and love having it. It allows me to record shows without a cable company charging me $20/month to use their stupid box. I’m somewhat of an expert on cutting out cable now, so if any commenters have questions about cutting the cord, reply to this post. I’d be happy to answer them.
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What HD Antenna brand did you buy? and how far are you from the closest tower?
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Tom, don’t waste money on an “HD” antenna. That term is basically meaningless. You need to make sure you have an HD tuner on your television. (Most modern TVs do). Make sure the Antenna is a VHF/UHF antenna.
Use the Antenna website (http://www.antennaweb.org/) to see what stations you can get with different sized antennas and how to aim your antenna. If you live in a metropolitan area, you may not need anything more then a cheap pair of “rabbit ears”.
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Yes, good point. An HD antenna has nothing really to do whether you can get HD. You need a TV with the built in HD tuner or an external box with one. Check out HDHomerun: http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun/atsc/
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For hands on expertise with antenna aiming just ask anyone born before 1960. We all know how to do it.
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1960?? Are you kidding me? I’m 33 and had rabbit ears though most of ’00s!
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There are no real “brands” of HD antennas. They are usually manufactured by some random companies. However, the one I have had the most success with is the ClearStream 2 (http://tinyurl.com/27y2mym). It’s not the prettiest, but it is indoor/outdoor and works great.
Make sure to point it in the direction of where the broadcasters locate their antennas. You can figure that out from here: http://tvfool.com/
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Thanks for the detailed break down! With taxes and fees, I pay about $45/month for pretty good basic cable — that’s the number I have to beat.
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Brett, what are the basic specs for your HTPC, including the OS? I have several spare PCs, and I’m guessing I can goose up at least one of them to record and serve up over-the-air recordings. If you know of a website you find useful for guides, etc., I’d appreciate the link. Thanks!
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check out lifehacker for all sorts of discussion on building an HTPC. There are a ton of links to explore in this post:
http://lifehacker.com/5894075/set-up-an-awe+inducing-media-center-this-weekend
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How would I go about watching my NHL team (Bruins, 2010 game 7 still hurts despite 2011) online or without cable? That’s the only thing keeping me from dropping cable completely.
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http://www.vipbox.tv/
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Brett – if you are a Philly transplant or NJ next time you are in town I will pay you to help me figure out my cable situation and fix it! I am at 235.00 a month with comcast and i need a cable intervention!!! I posted a job on a freelance website Elance to hire someone to help me figure this out… I need a cable alternative expert to come to my home and determine what we need, biggest issue FLYERS and the love of DVR and kids with cable 4 boxes, phone and internet bundled. WHAAAAAA someone help me!
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We ditched satellite a couple months ago and haven’t missed it AT ALL. The grandkids are currently watching Shaun the Sheep on Netflix via the Roku.
I don’t count internet costs as that is a cost that I have *anyway*.
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Netflix is awesome for kids! There are tons of great kids shows for them to watch over and over and over. My kids like Shaun the Sheep too.
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In prior posts about cable/sat alternatives, I’ve always wondered about sports as well. We are BIG sports watchers. College football, our local NHL team (which is on a regional Fox Sports network – which might be the hardest to find w/o a provider), and lots of other stuff.
As far as the Olympics, NBC will be using all of their channels (MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports (formerly VS), even Bravo and some others), so it might not be as simple as getting NBC OTA, depending on what someone might want to watch.
We don’t have our PC connected to our TV (however one might do that) so we’ve got a long way to go before we could even consider giving up Cable to use internet-based solutions. Our Cable is certainly VERY expensive though.
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The NHL streams all of it’s games through the NHL Gamecenter. It’s $150 for the entire season, however they blackout the local market teams. It’s a great solution if you are a transplant like myself.
The Roku box will stream hockey games via the NHL Gamecenter, as well as MLB’s and NBA’s equivalent. Again local teams will be blacked out. As far as the olympics go, there are plenty of websites that will stream the events, but most are not American.
Think about this, the entire world is watching these games and our country makes it an exclusive activity by broadcasting them on a Network with 5 cable channels that only those with cable get to see. So if you can afford $100 month to get all those cable channels you can watch the olympics in the US. I doubt it’s this exclusive in the rest of the world.
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Yup, I’m local to my team, so NHL Game Center won’t help me.
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Check out Hockeystreams.com (http://www4.hockeystreams.com/). It’s $90 for the season, with no blackout restrictions. Two caveats:
1. Not sure if it is a legal site, but people on the Flyers forums love it.
2. It’s not quite HD like Gamecenter is.
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Yeah, know about that as well. Not really interested in the maybe-semi-legal sites and we also don’t have our PC hooked up to our TV. We have no interest in watching on our PC.
It’s fine though. We are really happy with our cable package (despite the price). We watch lots of sports and on lots of TVs. It would be difficult to modify the entire family’s habits at this point (a HS and College boy live here too).
Maybe 1 day.
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Over The Air (OTA) free TV broadcasts. I paid $75 for a new roof-mounted antenna when we moved to our new house about 8 months ago. We get over 30 Hi-Def stations here in rural SW MI, including FOX, CBS, NBC, and ABC. We pull in two 24/7 old movie channels (yay for old Westerns!),a 24/7 music video channel, and 24/7 travel and exploration channels.
We are able to watch all Chicago and Detroit professional sports teams; the NFL, MLB, and NBA playoffs; the Super Bowl; the Olympics; national election results in real-time, countless TV shows (I’ll go for Burn Notice, the wife is glued to the Bachelorette), and more news and political analysis than you could possibly watch. We never lack something entertaining to watch, all completely free.
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We buy a lot of our favorite shows on Amazon Instant from their a la carte offerings. If you figure up what shows you really want from cable and price them out on Amazon with the a la carte it will probably be cheaper. You also can restream them anytime you want after buying them.
We use Netflix streaming also, but it is mainly for our kids. If we didn’t have little kids at home we probably would drop Netflix since we’ve seen most of the stuff we are interested in. That is one nice thing about Netflix… You can pick it up and drop it as needed.
As far as sports go, hopefully your internet provider gives you ESPN streaming access with your internet package. I haven’t heard of many other good alternatives. You can stream preseason NFL football straight from the NFL, but not regular season. MLB has some good streaming options I hear, but I don’t use them.
Definitely get yourself an antenna. Network TV is high quality and free over the air.
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As others said, you can get some great content over the air (OTA) with an antenna– and the HD quality is even better than you get with cable or satellite!
If you don’t like fumbling with a computer to watch online programming, I’d highly recommend a Roku! You can watch Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant, and more– all on your TV with a simple remote! I’ve had a Roku for years and love it!
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I’ll have to look into this Roku thing. Quite frankly I have no interest in buying a computer for the sole purpose of cancelling cable. I do call every 6mo and negotiate the smallest cost – which is much lower than they would have you believe. We are not sports fans – never ever watch sports – correction – we watch the super bowl (some years). But we REALLY like the programming on USA – Burn Notice, Suits, White Collar, Royal Pains, Neccesary Roughness. Good stuff, not available on any of the alternatives we’ve seen so far. And the new season of Project Runway started last night. Of course in a couple weeks when the current season ends – we sure don’t need cable for a couple months till the new seasons start.
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I gave up cable when I started grad school, thinking I didn’t need to spend the money or tempt myself away from studying. I’d been a serious TV hound prior to this so I was a bit worried. That was 4 years ago and I’ve never looked back. I have Netflix (the subscription where you get one disc at a time and streaming) and I use Hulu (not Hulu plus) to watch things online. Usually I can find a way to get things online, but if I can’t, I just don’t watch them. For example: HBO put the first episode of The Newsroom online but you have to have a subscription to watch any other episodes. That’s fine–I just won’t watch it. Or I’ll wait until it comes out on Netflix. Either way, it’s HBOs loss, not mine. Maybe I’m not up-to-date on all the newest shows or watercooler gossip, but not having cable sure gives me a lot more free time, and it saves about $90 a month. As for the news, I stream NPR over my computer in the mornings when I’m getting ready, and I absolutely love it. I think the quality of programming is better than any news station (I used to watch CNN in the mornings) and I like that I can pick any station anywhere in the country. You may think you “need” to see a certain show, but you’d be surprised how little you care after a short time. If there’s something you really can’t miss, watch it at a bar/restaurant/friend’s house/etc.
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Isn’t it possible to be a TV hound with Netflix? Some of my friends get addicted to new shows and watch a whole lot at once. There’s even more variety than with basic cable because of re-runs.
I don’t mean that as a criticism — I’m curious as to why cable gets a bad rap when it comes to time management skills when other services don’t? (I record most of what I watch on cable anyway).
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Oh there’s totally a way to get addicted to shows through Netflix! I mainly use it for movies though
I guess people really like it because it’s so much cheaper than cable? I also really like that I was able to easily put it on hold for a month when I was out of the country and not using it. I can only imagine the headache that would ensue if you tried to pause your cable for a month.
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Oh I totally want Netflix for the movies! Every movie rental place in my city is gone.
It sounds like your more mindful of what you watch now, so changing how you watch changed your habits. (Kudos!) I found I started watching less TV when I acquired a used PVR. I can watch shows when I want (usually when I don’t have the energy for much else) and sometimes I just plain forgot or lose interest.
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We have cable for one reason: baseball.
Radio is our easiest alternative and we listen to it while doing the dishes or riding in the car.
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As most people are saying – olympics is broadcasted on major networks that you can pick up over the air. Assuming one lives in a place where this is possible and have the free verion of digital box.
Personally, i have internet,and to get the best deal on the internet from the provider i had to get basic cable. Our Internet/cable fee averages out to a total of $45 a month.(i have my channels News Channel, History NG, & my wife gets her HGTV, Food, Lifestyle …. and we are happy campers) We also have a netflix subscription for $7.99/month. I bought my own cable modem so i do not have to pay the monthly leasing charge. I just have to somehow get the kids channel.. but am not willing to pay more than we are paying now.
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If someone is considering cutting cable at this point, but still concerned about seeing all of the Olympics, they should just sit tight for another month. Not everything is being broadcast over the air (MSNBC, CNBC, NBCSports Network, Bravo….).
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We get most of our content using an over the air antenna. There is a great website at antenna dot org that allows you to put in your zip code and estimate what stations should be available.
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I built a website (www.ICutCable.com) to help people cut the cord after I became increasingly frustrated with the rising costs and subsidizing of 500 channels that I don’t watch. And we haven’t looked back a bit. I use Roku, a PS3 and a new WD Live streamer (better than Roku) throughout the house, and a combination of Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime (total of about $20/month). Netflix for some movies and TV shows, Hulu for current TV shows, and Amazon to buy the occasional new movie for $2.99. You can’t beat it. I also set up a network attached hard drive to house all my music and photos, and devices like the WD streamer and PS3 can play all those files on the TV. Sports and premium cable are the two down sides. More sports is being streamed online (Superbowl was), but I just use it as an excuse to head to the pub which is fun anyway. HBO/Showtime is the big downer; you have to wait for them to come out on Amazon/Netflix. And if you have a TV/Internet bundle, the cable companies will add $10 to your Internet after you cut the cord. But it’s still saving me in total at least $75/month. Most TV is a worthless, mind wasting time suck anyway. I think people should be “creating” more than “consuming.” Create something, like JD did with this site, and who knows what can happen?
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I don’t know about anyone else here, but I don’t have the good health and energy to make every hour of every day a productive one. If media consumption was keeping me from exercising, spending time with friends or creating things, there would be a problem for sure!
Sometimes when I’m sick or tired at the end of the day, I want to relax — not write a blog
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We cut cable about a year ago. We bought a Roku box ($100) and pay for Netflix at $7.99 per month. We used to have Hulu but weren’t watching it much so we cancelled it. We also have an antenna to watch the local channels.
Occasionally, we order something off of Amazon…like recently when we ordered the HBO series Game of Thrones. By the way, Game of Thrones is seriously awesome!
Not having cable tv has been a great thing for us. When we had cable, we would just turn it on and sit there staring at it as the minutes and hours ticked by. With Netflix, we have to intentionally pick a show and watch it. Then once that show is over, it turns off and you have to pick another show to watch. The result is that we watch a lot less TV and get a lot more done.
After the initial investment of a Roku box at $100, and an antenna at about $30, we are now paying only $7.99 per month for TV. That is extremely affordable and I have found out that I really don’t miss tv at all. We watch a lot more documentaries now and a lot less trash tv.
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My wife and I don’t use cable and haven’t missed it since we “cut the cord”. Our setup is:
- An HTPC (Home Theater PC) connnected to the TV
- An HD Antenna connected to PC
- Windows Media Center records our TV shows and shows live OTA television
- Hulu Desktop (http://www.hulu.com/labs/hulu-desktop) for a ‘lean-back’ style of Hulu viewing
- An XBOX 360, which I use to view Netflix, ESPN, and other content providers.
- I also plan to get ‘NFL Game Rewind’ for $40, which will give me access to ALL NFL football games this season.
Note: Because the HTPC is a full-PC, I find this helps circumvent content restrictions on the set-top devices like Boxee, AppleTV, and others. If it works on a PC, it works on the HTPC connected to the TV.
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That’s pretty impressive. But I think there are costs associated (for someone like me) to get that type of infrastructure to support what you are doing and also expertise (for someone like me) to be able to pull it off.
As far as XBOX360…don’t you need an XBOX live subscription as well?
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ESPN3 is a great way to watch sports. You may not always get the best games, but they often have good selections to choose from. I watched all of the NBA finals and Home Run Derby even though I don’t have cable.
At the end of the day, cable is worth cutting and you won’t miss it much. Pick up a book and read!
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If you like to watch local sports then there is no way you can drop cable (or FIOS). Sure all of the sports leagues have online streaming packages, but as others have already pointed out they are blacked out in local markets. So if you are in Philadelphia and want to watch the Phillies, Sixers, or Flyers, you must pay for cable. No way around it (other than going to a friend’s house every day).
If you don’t care about local sports then there are lots of options, many of which have already been listed above.
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I have Netflix on demand on my TV. While it is not a complete substitute for cable or satellite and can be hard to use at times, you can watch most shows and movies. Almost all popular TV shows are included.
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I had a heavy addiction to cable before I moved back to the US in 2006. Since I was starting from scratch, cable wasn’t in the budget. So I just quit cable cold turkey and got rabbit ears.
I used to watch basketball but somehow I got interested in other things, so that didn’t matter anymore. Some of the games were keeping me up late at night anyway, which was not great at all when you had to work the next day.
Like the others, I used to watch tv shows on Hulu, but I realized that I was getting hooked again and before I knew it, so much time has already passed. So I stopped doing that.
I don’t watch the news because the reports are usually negative and depressing or they want you to be anxious about something (Five Things You may not know about your Doctor!).
If there is a major news break, I usually hear about it on the radio or read about it via the news portion of a search engine (Yep, it’s not all current or complete or even newsworthy but at least I’m not totally so isolated from the world).
I rarely watch tv now and if there’s one show that I miss, it’s “Lost.” But I got over it. Hahaha.
I realized that watching TV didn’t add value to my life, so it wasn’t so painful when I decided to break up with it. No regrets at all.
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For the Roku: google “nowhere TV”….TONS of programming…ex. 60 minutes, the Today show, CBS Saturday morning, the nightly news….etc. Some delay, same stuff that’s online, presumably, but nice to have it piped through TV. I also use the Roku for Pandora, which I find myself using LOTS more than I ever did through computer or smartphone.
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A few years back I paid for cable Internet service and found when I plugged the tv in, I could get the basic tv channels through the cable line even without paying anything extra. New digital antennas also work pretty well for picking up signals.
But we have since gotten rid of the tv and I mostly use the iPad if I want to watch something. ABC has a great app with their shows, and we pay for Hulu to get an even bigger back catalog. It’s not perfect, but good enough for something to listen to while ironing or mopping the floors. Season 2 of Downton Abbey just came through on Hulu, so as long as you don’t mind being a little out of date, it’s pretty good.
I can’t speak much to sports as I don’t really follow. But if there’s a big game like the Super Bowl we sometimes go to friends houses or sports bars.
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This is true. Cable companies embed the broadcast network signals in their internet signal because they realize you could just get those channels over the air for free.
However, my cable signal is pretty crapp (Old Boston infrastructure and Comcast are a bad combo). So if I split my cable signal so that I can get internet AND the tv channels, my internet starts to crap out. So I went out and got a TV antenna, which I think gives me better picture anyway.
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We have cable internet but no cable TV service, and use an Xbox to watch online content on the television. We pay for internet, Netflix, and Hulu+ (although we are going to be dropping that one soon). For sports, my husband watches tennis on ESPN3 through the Xbox and I think has a separate (paid?) app for tennis on his iPad.
I second the suggestion to listen to NPR radio for news.
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My boyfriend and I (in Canada) don’t have cable – we use Netflix and the odd streaming from the networks websites.
BUT – I wanted to watch the Olympics, and with my little netbook it’s just not the same . so, we got cable just for the Olympics. 1 month for $20. We had to give them 30 days notice to cancel so we called to cancel before they had come to set it up!!!
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One thing Ive noticed after I cut the cable 2 years ago was that the only major thing I miss is the local baseball games. Football is broadcast over TV and I get my baseball info over textmessage… If I want to watch a game, I go to a local bar for that. ESPN3 was a lifesaver for the Homerun derby, and there is a lot of sports games that are broadcast over rabbit ears.
For the news fix, if you don’t want to watch local, many sites like Fox and CNN have a video section, which after your done with the first video will go to the next one, keeping the background noise of news playing.
I built a media center 2 years ago… it cost $600 at the time and uses Windows Media Center, but it has built in tv with dvr, Hulu, Blueray, Internet TV with XBMC and Boxee, full-screen games, local and world radio, Netflix, access to all of local media, and anything else I can think of. I can get newly released Blueray movies at the local redbox for $1.50 and rent movies from Amazon (Im canceling my Netflix 1 dvd at a time to drop my bill from $20 to $8)
I had to work my tail off to negotiate the ATT Uverse contract for my parents.. there HD triple play with dvr runs near $120 (they refuse to cut the cord)… while my “triple play” per month runs $41 ($30 for 3mbps DSL, $3 for VOIP which I really don’t need and $8 for Netflix)
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Scripted shows: Easy to find online (usually Hulu or a network’s website, though there are unauthorized sites where shows can be streamed).
Sports: The biggest (last?) advantage cable has. Football is easy to find via unauthorized sites online. I pay for the MLB.TV package, but my favorite team is out of my market so it works. As a big sports fan, I decided I’d rather spend the cable money going to a sports bar so I at least get some food out of the deal. As it is, I often just go to a friend’s house instead or just miss a game. More and more events are being broadcast online though, including all of March Madness this year (first time I think that every game was broadcast).
Local programming: An antenna will work for most (all?) of this.
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We used to have the Comcast triple play. Now all we have in internet service through them. We ditched cable a year ago and got rid of our land line about 6 months ago. We do miss some cable shows but it is not too bad. The most freeing thing about it is if we are not happy with the cost of our internet ($27.99) each month. It is a great bargaining chip to just tell them to either lower my bill or I will find somewhere else to get service from. We can just find someone else without worrying about what channels we are going to miss, or worrying if we are going to have to get a new phone number.
We pay for netflix and get a lot of movies or shows from the library. We have an antenna in the attic that brings us all of the main network channels. For news, we have a Roku box. It is a little box that hooks up with the internet. It allows us to stream Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Pandora and others. It also has a channel called Newsfeed. That channel has a lot of the segments that had played on the news channels from all of the news networks. It even has Pardon the Interruption (in podcast version)!
Getting rid of our landline was a great thing too. We went for a VoIP system that cost $45 to start up and $0 a month afterwards. We have a box called an OBI that connects to the internet then runs to our home telephone. We got a free phone number through Google Voice and now all of our friends can call us using our number. The best part, all outgoing calls in the US are free! Here is my link that I had the step by step for how we set this up: http://ericsrunningjourney.blogspot.com/2012/03/103-get-rid-of-our-home-landline.html
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Eric, do you find you get a lot/more junk calls on your cell phone now that you don’t have a land line? As it is, we barely even answer our landline. It’s on the Do Not Call List, but still we get politicians, charities, and other calls (e.g. “Lower your credit card rate!”) at least two or three times a day.
We’ll give our home phone number to anybody, like to all the stores for their courtesy cards, etc. It’s a throwaway number we feel no urgency to answer. Our cell phone numbers are like gold – we very rarely give them out. We get virtually no nuisance calls on them and only people important to us have the cell phone numbers.
One of our concerns about giving up the house phone is nuisance calls on the cells. What’s your experience?
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Mom of Five,
What I would suggest, with regard to the annoying land line phone calls, is to use Google Voice feature to help you out with that (provided you have a Google Account). You will get a phone number and then, in the Google Voice settings, you can set it up so that calls to your home phone get forwarded to your Google Voice number. Google Voice will act as your answering machine/call screener essentially and then, when you get those annoying telemarketing/political calls, you can set each to be blocked; it works like a charm, with blocked calls getting sent to spam.
Linking that number to Google Voice has been a blessing; I have peace and quiet now!
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We did away with the land line about a year ago, in part to cover the cost of smart phones. Since then we have rarely gotten any junk calls. There was one 866 number that tried about 5 times, never answered it, went on Verizon’s website and blocked the number. And this is in spite of giving out the real number all the time.
Of course, the fact that we just went to the plan that has unlimited calls takes away the worry about that.
And the fact that I never changed the cell number when we moved several area codes away may make a difference, so YMMV.
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Funny enough, we used to get a lot of calls on our old number. After changing we have only given our number to our friends and it doesn’t ring except if it is someone we know. If I am ever needed to give a number to a company I don’t want to hear from I give the number 555-555-5555.
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I read your question incorrectly earlier. We still have a phone in our home. Our cordless phone that used to be hooked up to our landline is now hooked up to a box that is connected to our modem. We still have a phone to use at home, but we did have to change our number to get it through Google. I am told that we could have spent $20 to keep our old number, but by changing we got rid of all of the telemarketers that had us on record for our old number.
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Netflix… or how about just taking on a second side job and having 2 kids? I did that and I can’t imagine how people have time to turn on the TV… we are always actively engaged in our kids… which is the opposite of letting them watch TV.
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Well, when my kids were little, I had a later bedtime than they did and allowed myself to watch TV (even before DVRs, there were VCRs!). Now that they are older, they have jobs or sports or homework. I do still get to watch TV from time to time, should I choose to!
In fact, they love to watch some things (sports especially) with us.
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Whenever people comment on how smart my four year old is, I often say, “Well, he watches two hours of TV a day.” I do this this just as a challenge to the idea that regular television makes a person stupid. I watched TONS of TV as a kid, and I went on to get a doctorate in a difficult field in which I had to do research in three different languages. But I guess if I hadn’t watch television as a child I might have cured cancer instead [sarcasm alert!].
I’m not really meaning to pick on this particular comment, but it was a little holier than thou. So during the day I want a break from the play and the chatter and just sit in front of my computer and read a blog? My kids need down time too, and TV can often bring that.
Plus I can’t tell you number of the times my older kid mentions animals or things that he clearly learned from his TV shows. Kids programming has come a long way from Looney Toones. It can be educational and harmless in moderation.
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I love this comment!
We dont’ do kids shows, but my daughter and my husband kick back with the animal documentaries on occasion. She can identify animals like lions, tigers, and bears – which we don’t have where we live. I guess we could go to the zoo – but I think a documentary of them in their natural habitat is good for her to see, in order to understand the importance of preserving it.
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We cut cable about three years ago due to cost and customer service issues. I was tired of remembering to call every six months to get the better deal and we were paying basically for three kids channels while the others languished. At the time we were already picking up kids DVDs at the library. My kid does watch tv, but not having cable has made us more mindful of what he (and we’re watching) instead of just turning on the tv and watching whatever happens to be on.
I switched services and we pay $45 for high speed internet, down from $135 for both cable and internet. We use the local library for kids DVD’s combined with streaming from our Netflix account, channel websites (like Disney HD, Nick), and Hulu. My husband and I were using the DVR to record broadcast shows so now we stream them from the network websites when we want to watch them.
We’ve been traveling and had access to cable in hotel rooms and apparently we’re not missing much. History Channel and my other former fave channels have all degenerated to reality shows about capturing fugitives, alligators, and various wars from storage to shipping. Content on the kids’ networks appears to be just as awful. We’re not missing anything except the big bill.
Second to the earlier comment about the Google Voice number! It’s a fantastic service.
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Because not all of us can have kids or limitless supplies of energy. Good for you for what you’ve been able to accomplish, though.
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“But is there a way to get the news without paying for television?” Radio, newspapers, and a carefully curated Twitter list are great ways to get news.
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I get most of my news via my RSS reader. I can subscribe to a variety of websites and see the headlines at a glance. Instead of reading the newspaper at breakfast, I read my news reader
I’m not big on videos, but many of the news stories you find in the feeds have video.
If you’re in North America, you can follow international sources like the BBC and Australian newspapers. Due to the time difference, they often post international news stories before anyone else.
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Cut the cable cord when prices went up to $35! Have an outside antenna which cost $535 installed. Payback about 5 months considering today’s cable $. We get about 40 channels including classics on MEtv and Canadian stations (Hockey Night in Canada!) Learn more about antennas at http://www.antennaweb.org/
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I don’t have time in my life to watch TV – although my friends would argue that Facebook is my TV. They’d probably be right on that.
My gym has cable, so if I really want to see something, and the time was right, I could go there. For movies and TV shows, I borrow from the library – but even then I often don’t make time to watch the DVDs I borrow. I am interested in the internet options because I’m not sure how they work. Thanks to everyone for posting your solutions!
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Yup, we all make our own decisions/tradeoffs. I deactivated my Facebook account in Feb because I felt it was a complete waste of my time.
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For morning news, I like NPR. I don’t know about Olympic and other sporting events. You might be stuck with cable for that one. I want to see the Olympic, but I’m not all that interested in other events. For me, I would cancel after the Olympic.
Or if you can get HDTV reception. That works too.
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I actually just wrote a post about canceling our satellite service. We use Netflix to stream TV shows, an attic antenna for over-the-air local programming and network websites for streaming new TV episodes. Also, for my sports fix, watchespn.com. I was surprised to find out that my ISP is on the list. If you don’t have any strong college allegiances, http://www.goducks.com streams Oregon Ducks sporting events. My favorite college because they let me watch for free.
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We just cut cable last month. We really didn’t watch it anymore. We were spending about 120 a month for directtv.
We have netflix and a roku box. With the roku box, I can watch the local news from the night before the using nowheretv app. There are many different channels on the roku for different interest. Some are supported by the roku others are private. You can find more roku app channels at http://streamfree.tv/apps/roku-private-channels/ And some channels you can set up a play list so that it just plays like a regular tv. The shows that we had the cable for we find stream online.
So far, we have not missed the cable, But I’m going to like the extra 1400/year
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I have a $600 42″ Panasonic Smart TV with apps (Netflix, Hulu, etc.), Netflix streaming for $8 per month, high speed internet for $8 per month (since it is split with roommates), and a $25 Mohu leaf antenna. The rest is free: HD OTA network programming (NBC, Fox, ABC, CW, PBS, CBS, etc.), DVDs (movies and TV shows) from the library, and Hulu. Many major sporting events such as the Olympics, World Series, and March Madness are broadcast on OTA network TV.
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Aside from HULU and similar online TV sites, I find myself going over to friends houses for big sporting events. Show up with some food or pizza and everyone will love you! Not to mention 2 pizza’s is alot cheaper than cable
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We cut DirecTV in 2010 and haven’t missed it, except for NHL games. But with 2 little kids, I don’t get the opportunity to sit down for 2.5 hours and watch a full game anyway. Last year when my team was in the playoffs I went to my brother’s house or a bar to watch.
We cut it after analyzing our watching habits and concluding a) we were watching too much and b) most of what we watched was on over the air TV anyway. We are putting our $80/month to better use now – reading, building a side business, etc with that time.
We really miss the DVR more than satellite, but with nearly everything online now that is not as necessary either.
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Throughout my 3 years of grad school, I went without cable. I watched my shows via Hulu and Netflix. For shows I wanted to watch in real time, I would meet up with friends who had cable or an antenna and would watch with them. This last was a great solution for people who worry about how to do social things on a budget. Getting together, eating dinner, and watching a favorite tv show really helped build friendships.
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http://www.foxsoccer2go.com/
http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index/_/source/espn3/#sport/soccer-futbol/
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This is a timely post for me, as we just cut our DirectTV this week. This will be the first time I will be without cable in about a decade.
What we always did to save money on cable was move from plan to plan. First a two year contract with Charter. Once that ended, we moved to Dish and then to DirectTV. Sometimes they would beg enough and get us to stay, but usually we just cycled every two years.
But then we realized most of what we watched was on network television anyway and that we were paying ca. $80 a month for a DVR and better reception. So that’s why we bought a new TIVO, which is a great throwback for us, since my husband bought his first TIVO right after it came out in 1999 and enjoyed many years with the device.
So, we have Netflix streaming, a good antenna, a Roku for the basement TV, and a TIVO. The TIVO was $100 upfront and about $15 a month now. And the Netflix is $8. It works for us.
The biggest sacrifice is definitely sports, and I’m sure we’ll be missing it during the Olympics. My husband is a big Tottenham fan and had a special soccer package. He will miss that. And I’m a huge tennis fan, and I’ve noticed that tennis is being aired less and less on network television these days. That is unfortunate. But the savings were too significant to keep the big package just for sports.
Any ideas for HBO? There’s no way I can get my husband to wait on Game of Thrones until it comes out on DVD, so likely we are going to, um, download it from somewhere [...] , and then buy the DVDs when they come out as our penance. We can’t really come up with a better plan. I feel bad about it and wish HBO would offer other options.
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HBOGo is HBO’s version of Hulu, but only for their content. It stretches back to long-finished series and has a lot of great content, Games of Thrones included. If you have a trusted friend that subscribes to HBO through their TV service provider they can provide their login information to you for using HBOGo.
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For news in the morning, I listen to the BBC podcasts that are free to download through iTunes. Totally beats paying for cable news that isn’t as good, especially if it’s just on in the background!
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I’ve never had cable, ever. And I do watch plenty of TV. I have an antennae that I purchased for $15 and I can get broadcast TV just fine. My husband and I don’t watch that much sports, but they do show sports and the Olympics on network TV. The local station broadcasts Oriole’s and Ravens games if we’re so inclined. If there’s something I want to watch that’s cable-only, I watch it online.
Even though I do watch TV, I could never justify actually paying a monthly fee to watch it.
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