PSA: Cable TV is a money pit

[Phokus]

cable tv would be so much more tolerable if there was an a la carte option.

 

[yuchai]

same here

Won't work with Cablevision either 🙁

 

[Sureshot324]

If I could watch NBA games online live I would ditch cable in a second. A lot of Senators NHL games I can already watch online on CBC.ca.

 

[JoPh]

i would cancel tv when football season is done with. but the wife loves tv. shes a channel surfer. i could live with tv on the computer.

 

[CRXican]

There's probably something else you waste $120/month on anyway so why pick on cable.

I bought an HDTV for a reason.

 

[preslove]

cable tv would be so much more tolerable if there was an a la carte option.

I'll happily torrent until there is an a la carte option. There is no fucking way in hell I'm paying for the Disney Channel. Content Providers' bundling should be illegal. Disney Corp. basically extorts cable companies into buying the Disney Channel because they bundle it with ESPN.

 

[Vette73]

i would cancel tv when football season is done with. but the wife loves tv. shes a channel surfer. i could live with tv on the computer.

I get about 30-40 channels with over the air digital.

My MiL loves the vietnamese channel and that is free over the air. Theres also the nigerian channel, don;t watch that though. :awe:

 

[Deeko]

Football season is starting, good luck watching those college and pro games just with the net.

Pro games are almost all on broadcast, you know that, right? Head out to a local bar to catch MNF and the occasional NFLN game. Problem solved.

 

[Pliablemoose]

OTA for some time now, one less bill to bay, and when there isn't crap on TV, I'm not paying $100/month to turn it off...

Between Windows Media Center, Netflix streaming & the intertubes, I have more than enough crap to watch...

 

[evident]

Show me how to get all the ESPN's without cable/satellite/other, and I'm interested.

show me how to get the phillies w/o comcrap or fios. i've been wanting to switch to dish network for a long time but comcast has the philly market on lockdown 🙁

Well if you go to a sports bar for every game, you're paying for food, drinks, etc. All toll, that'd probably be more than cable for an even moderate sports watcher.

exactly, my new house is gonna be a few blocks away from the bars, but i'd be getting fat eating crap food and drinking beer, and i want people to entertain people at my house. it's a shame that cable tv is so expensive. but i guess there really isn't an easy way around it for sports.

 

[Homerboy]

Pro games are almost all on broadcast, you know that, right? Head out to a local bar to catch MNF and the occasional NFLN game. Problem solved.

I dont think my wife and/or kids will appreciate me going out to the bars all day Sunday, Monday ngiht and Thursday night. Not to mention Saturdays too.

Sorry cable has it's place in my house and is not going anywhere.

 

[Deeko]

I dont think my wife and/or kids will appreciate me going out to the bars all day Sunday, Monday ngiht and Thursday night. Not to mention Saturdays too.

Sorry cable has it's place in my house and is not going anywhere.

All day Sunday? Where did that come from? I believe Fox comes over the air.

Anyway, I'm not telling you to get rid of your cable. I pay a godawful amount for my FIOS TV. Just saying that "but but but football!!!" isn't a good excuse.

 

[Blackjack200]

It wasn't too long ago that every local professional sports team was on basic cable and basic cable was $30/month.

The cable company pays a fortune for exclusive broadcast rights (or outright owns the team) and then turns around and bills you for it. So when you read about Roy Halladay's shiney new contract, remember that you're paying for it.

 

[evident]

It wasn't too long ago that every local professional sports team was on basic cable and basic cable was $30/month.

The cable company pays a fortune for exclusive broadcast rights (or outright owns the team) and then turns around and bills you for it. So when you read about Roy Halladay's shiney new contract, remember that you're paying for it.

comcast practically owns philadelphia. i'm surprised that FIOS somehow managed to get comcast sports net when it first came to the area.

 

[MrMatt]

I get that watching t.v. is a hobby for some. But for me, I just don't have any time for it. I watch Always Sunny, Beaking Bad, and Californication. I watch every Patriots game, and the celtics & sox if they're on after I get out of work while I eat dinner. Other than that, nothing.

When I was a teen I watched maybe 6 hours/week of t.v. with my family. But now? Between school & work, bird watching, day trading, the gym, my friends, I have no time for it. Even if I didn't have grad school to contend with I still wouldn't watch more t.v., I'd hang out with my friends more. I think that the unprecedented mobility that people have now in this country is just as much to blame for the fall in t.v. ratings as the awful quality of the shows on now. Personally if I had to choose between some cookie cutter sitcom & seeing my friends...I'm choosing my friends every time. Who would choose differently?

 

[rcpratt]

Pro games are almost all on broadcast, you know that, right? Head out to a local bar to catch MNF and the occasional NFLN game. Problem solved.

Sure, but add it all up. MNF. College football and basketball...most of what I watch is on ESPN or Big Ten Network. Hockey and baseball are almost all on the local Fox Sports channel here. Same with NBA, or sometimes that's on TNT or ESPN.

Baseball is the only sport with a worthwhile internet option right now. If everyone does that (or ESPN/BTN/FS offers something), I'll cancel my cable ina heartbeat.

 

[dfuze]

For those that have dropped cable and use OTA, which antenna are you using because when I tried it last year I kept losing signal in the middle of the good parts of shows. I don't remember the antenna I had, but I'll be honest it was pretty cheap.

 

[Dedpuhl]

I pay $130 for cable/internet. I'm probably going to drop all the "special" stuff soon as I barely turn the TV on these days...

 

[lupi]

Pro games are almost all on broadcast, you know that, right? Head out to a local bar to catch MNF and the occasional NFLN game. Problem solved.

Sure do skippy, and the quality of which is somewhere between sucks and ass. And there's nothing more that I would enjoy in watching a game in a bar with no volume so if the ambient was actually low enough for you to hear it there's nothing to hear.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Last two years I've signed up for basic ($13/mo) cable during the football season and canceled it after the Super Bowl ended. Ends up costing $78 for the entire season, although normally they tack on a $30 activation fee so it's $108.

It would be a pain in the ass if I lived far from my home team, but since I don't, all their games are on network TV. No need to pay the rape price of $100+ a month when the only thing I care about is available for so cheap. All other shows I like I can easily watch online.

 

[Deeko]

Sure do skippy, and the quality of which is somewhere between sucks and ass. And there's nothing more that I would enjoy in watching a game in a bar with no volume so if the ambient was actually low enough for you to hear it there's nothing to hear.

Well, its not my issue that you live somewhere not close enough to civilization to get good broadcast reception, and that you have poor taste in sports bars..."skippy".

 

[Kadarin]

I dropped cable at the beginning of the year, and haven't looked back since. I've already saved enough money to pay for the Mac Mini I connected to the tv to run iTunes, Hulu, etc.

 

[thegimp03]

I like cable for sports, that's pretty much it. My wife likes a lot of other channels like Bravo, HGTV, and Food Network but I could do without cable tv pretty easily. The major networks end up streaming all the shows I want to see anyways...i.e. like Fox with 24 this past season (and probably other shows just never bothered to look). I really wish they'd move to an a la carte system like pay per channel. Much better than having 400 channels but only watching about 8.

 

[mvbighead]

Every time I try to watch te football without cable it sucks. And every time I go to the local bar to watch the game, I end up with a $50+ bill for food and drink. Cable for me.

 

[KentState]

Pro games are almost all on broadcast, you know that, right? Head out to a local bar to catch MNF and the occasional NFLN game. Problem solved.

Little simplistic to say all pro games are on broadcast. Just the local team if they sell out or are away. Then the networks will show 1 - 2 additional games, though they might not be the best ones on.

If you live in a city like Seattle that has horrible local pro teams, no NBA franchise, lackluster college sports and so on, how do you follow other teams across the country? Not like they preempt a Mariners game to show the Braves or Cardinals.