Ad Free TV - Is there or will there ever be an option for commercial free TV?

[ShokWaveRider]

I have been trying to find a single streaming service that provides Ad/commercial free TV (Including Live TV) in HD, I would not mind paying for this either.

Currently we watch very few TV channels and have very reasonably priced cable & internet for what we have.

Here is what we watch, we obviously get all the usual crap also and do not watch it at all.

MSNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, HGTV, Motortrend, Discovery, NatGeo, BBC America, PBS, SyFy, The weather channel, Food, NBC & some local channels.

We would love to get them all Ad Free. I have checked virtually every service and no single one provides them. It is not cost effective for us to have multiple services as we get everything else we watch regularly from other sources.

Currently basic cable HD for ~$40 a month covers all these BUT with those pesky ads. We do pay extra for high speed 600 mbs Internet at extra cost but would move to T-Mobile 5G if we got rid of cable. We do not use a DVR as other than Jeopardy there is nothing we watch on a regular basis.

If a service could do all this with no ads, I think they would make a killing. Let others take care of past it and not so current movies and shows.

 

[MichaelB]

Thread moved to media forum

 

[harllee]

I do not have ad free TV but I tape nearly everything I watch on Youtube TV and then I just zip through the commercials so I don't have to watch them.

 

[euro]

You can't really have ad free live TV because it would require a totally separate channel with a separate schedule. An hour of live TV is really around 35-40 minutes of programming and 20-25 minutes of ads. If you skipped the ads, you'd have to come up with additional programming to fill those 20-25 minutes. That would be VERY expensive - how much would you be willing to pay for such ad free programing?

Realistically, the best you can do is what Harllee describes above: record the programs and then skip over the ads. It is a bit tedious, but likely the best you'll ever do.

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

Currently basic cable HD for ~$40 a month covers all these BUT with those pesky ads. We do pay extra for high speed 600 mbs Internet at extra cost but would move to T-Mobile 5G if we got rid of cable. We do not use a DVR as other than Jeopardy there is nothing we watch on a regular basis.

Be very careful if you try T-Mobile 5G, I had a horrible experience.. Shortish version, their tech (15-20 hrs call time in total?) and customer support (10hrs plus certified mail and then more calls) were not up to the task. I spent almost a month and 3 separate modems and it never worked (tower 50' across the street with direct line of sight from my window where I installed the modem). After I returned my equipment and closed my account, they kept my account open and accruing charges even though I had no equipment (you have to use theirs) to use the service. It was a giant headache to clear my account to zero balance (they had sent the threatening letter to ding my credit and turn over to bill collectors) as I was not going to pay for services I didn't receive. Do some searches and you'll find lots of other similar experiences.



If you do try it, do not cancel your wired service until you have set up and used the 5G for a week or two and trust it. Also, if you don't like it, make sure you return the equipment and cancel within their 14`day or whatever it is window (I did not because the first modem/router did not work and they sent me another... and another.. which also didn't work). After my experience with them, I'd strongly advise against even trying T-mobile's offering -more due to customer service wrt their home gateway than the tech. I can understand growing pains with a new technology but the service was the worst I've had the misfortune to deal with in a long time.

 

[Chuckanut]

You can't really have ad free live TV because it would require a totally separate channel with a separate schedule. An hour of live TV is really around 35-40 minutes of programming and 20-25 minutes of ads. If you skipped the ads, you'd have to come up with additional programming to fill those 20-25 minutes. That would be VERY expensive - how much would you be willing to pay for such ad free programing?

Realistically, the best you can do is what Harllee describes above: record the programs and then skip over the ads. It is a bit tedious, but likely the best you'll ever do.

FWIW, some DVRs will provide an ad-skip feature. My Tivo does that for some prime time shows. One tap on the 'D' button and it skips over 95% of the commercials. Very nice.

 

[euro]

FWIW, some DVRs will provide an ad-skip feature. My Tivo does that for some prime time shows. One tap on the 'D' button and it skips over 95% of the commercials. Very nice.

That's definitely nice (and I'm very envious...), but it is not really ad-free LiveTV like the OP seems to be looking for. You still have to tape and then skip the ads. So it is time-delayed, not live.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

You aren't going to watch anything LIVE on those channels without ads. However, most of the other streaming services (Paramount, Discovery, Hulu) will have some (maybe not all on one service) ad free if you upgrade to "PLUS" and watch the shows on-demand.

However, be aware that on most of the networks you listed, some shows that are available on cable ARE NOT available on the stand alone streaming apps and vice versa. This has been one of my chief complaints. We noticed that since the cable network DIY switched Magnolia Network, many of the "exclusive on Discovery +" shows were removed.

It's a tough system to try and game. You definitely cannot have you cake and eat it, too.

I would also try out the Verizon @ home 5G before committing. It's very location dependent service and the current router (affectionately called the "trash can") will be upgraded in the near future and just like everything else, existing customers will be at the end of the line. We tried it as there is an upgraded 5G antenna about 3,500 feet from our house and its performance has been lack luster at best. It goes back tomorrow before the 30 day trial ends.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

What I was saying is if someone could figure it out, even if delayed say 15 mins, they could make a killing on monthly service fees.

 

[zinger1457]

Using a DVR is about the closes you will come to ad free. I do it all the time with sports, start recording a game and about 1hr after the game started begin watching the recording from the start and click through the commercials, will get through the DVR recording close to the time the live game ends.

 

[OldShooter]

Be very careful if you try T-Mobile 5G, I had a horrible experience.. ...

+100 I will never do business with them. Twice, several years apart, they lied to me about cell coverage near our lake home. In both cases they failed to deliver anything close to what their maps claimed. They also refused to refund the fees they had charged to date. Again both cases, I had to dispute the credit card charge in order to get my money. Cooperation from them was zero.

 

[njhowie]

FWIW, some DVRs will provide an ad-skip feature. My Tivo does that for some prime time shows. One tap on the 'D' button and it skips over 95% of the commercials. Very nice.

I do this with SNL every week. Can't stay up late enough to watch it Saturday night. If I do, I certainly do not make it to the end. Watching Sunday I can get through it in less than half the time skipping commercials and the musical guest with the Tivo.

 

[Ready]

Somebody has to pay for the all the content we watch so I don’t see how we could eliminate ads without charging a lot of money to watch the shows. I’ve had a TiVo since 1999 and haven’t watched a commercial since so I don’t really care if they keep the commercials around to pay the bills.

 

[John Galt III]

I have the cheapest cable TV tier I can get. It is $57 a month. I get lots of heavily commercial channels, BUT I also get a few PBS like channels which have no ads except for their own ads for their programs, and a 1 minute per hour list of their donors and sponsors. Also, I get some old timey reruns like Wagon Train, and The Rifleman, and they have short commercials, like one minute at a time, so you get about 25 minutes of the show, and only about 5 minutes of commercials per half hour! Sweet. I also get a weird French news channel, which I actually watch sometimes, called France 24, which has no commercials ! Lastly, but no least, I love to watch a well known(?) channel for news, which has zero ads, and is very informative. For some neurotic reason I don't want to mention its name, since 'to say it is to lose it.' I agree that the standard mainstream channels are way too overloaded with commercials.

 

[euro]

Somebody has to pay for the all the content we watch so I don’t see how we could eliminate ads without charging a lot of money to watch the shows.

Yes! Exactly the point I was trying to make, but much more eloquent....

On many popular channels these days, we are rapidly approaching parity between content and ads. So, if you were to eliminate the ads, you would not only lose all the revenue that the ads generate, but you would also have to double the content (presumably doubling the cost per hour of programming). This would get extraordinarily expensive - it would very likely require monthly fees FAR in excess of what people are paying for a cable subscription now.

 

[Sojourner]

What I was saying is if someone could figure it out, even if delayed say 15 mins, they could make a killing on monthly service fees.

Ehh, I'm not so sure about that. In my experience, most people don't care about ads. I am among the small minority of those who detest watching ads and will use virtually every trick in the book to avoid them. However, even I would not pay a huge premium for a completely ad-free selection of live TV channels. It's easy enough to simply use a DVR to record (or buffer) the shows you want to watch and skip the ads manually. I would not pay an extra, say, 25% premium to have those same channels ad-free.

IMHO, there will never be a TV service that offers ad-free, live, mainstream TV channels. There is simply not enough demand for that, and what little demand there is is covered by DVRs.

 

[Music Lover]

Using a DVR is about the closes you will come to ad free. I do it all the time with sports, start recording a game and about 1hr after the game started begin watching the recording from the start and click through the commercials, will get through the DVR recording close to the time the live game ends.

We do the same. We don't watch anything live at all.

Once or twice a week I scroll through the guide and record the shows and movies that we'll watch. When we want to watch some TV we pull up the list of recorded programs and choose from that.

 

[Midpack]

What I was saying is if someone could figure it out, even if delayed say 15 mins, they could make a killing on monthly service fees.

I doubt it. Lots of people are too cheap to pony up extra, only 40% of Hulu subscribers pay extra for ad free, and that's a very cheap platform compared to live broadcast platforms. There is NO WAY in the world we'd pay double for TV just to avoid ads, and I doubt I'm alone.

You're going to pay for live (and on demand) content one way or another - sub fees, ad revenue, etc. The collective we will pay the same in the end. If anything, when an industry makes a major change to their product that customers want, they make sure they net out a little higher profit.

What's wrong with the DVR approach (with manual or auto ad skipping)? That's what millions of viewers have done for decades...

As you can see, foregoing ads will cost you about twice as much (if not more) than the ad-supported tiers on each of the services we looked at. At the end of five years, for example, you’ll have paid $300 for Hulu with ads, but $720 without. If five years without car insurance pitches and ads for takeout services is worth that much money to you, go for it. But if you don’t care about ads or you’re just used to them from years of cable service, the savings you’ll get from putting up with them is definitely significant.

https://slickdeals.net/article/list...ulu. Hulu,Cost of Going Ad-Free: $50 a year.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Remember when cable first became available back in 1979-1980? Tons of content and no commercials. In fact, one of the selling points was "there's no commercials because you're paying for it to be brought into your home." Well, the no commercial policy lasted about 2 years or so.

I'm with ShokWaveRider. If there was a way to purchase ad-free channels ala carte I would do it in a split second.

Yes, DVR's are a workaround, and I employ them. But they require pre-planning to watch stuff on TV. When you just want to plop down in your recliner and channel surf, it's impossible to do it on cable because there are commercials every 6-7 minutes, on every channel. Unless you have a specific program you know you are going to watch and can get the DVR set up beforehand to record it, you're going to see commercials.

Oftentimes I will pull up the channel guide grid, see something I might want to watch then turn to the wife and say, "I bet you a dollar there's a commercial on this channel right now." Sure enough two out of three times I flip over to a channel there is a commercial on.

Streaming services purchased ad-free is the way to go. The amount of time saved by not seeing commercials does add up. Of course, buying several ad-free streamers gets to be expensive. On the other hand, Blow That Dough.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Remember when cable first became available back in 1979-1980? Tons of content and no commercials. In fact, one of the selling points was "there's no commercials because you're paying for it to be brought into your home." Well, the no commercial policy lasted about 2 years or so.

You mean when the channel A&E (Arts and Entertainment) played opera in the evening? Or perhaps when you could actually LEARN something on TLC (The Learning Channel)? Ah, -or- was it when The Weather Channel talked about weather and had a guy playing the ukulele while he talked about the weather?

As far as "tons" of content...I have the channel line up card from when I was a kid (1980) and it included a whopping 29 channels...and about 8 of them were local or the WTBS/WWOR/WGN types which certainly had commercials.

Today there are a LOT of ways to watch content without any ads at all....way, WAY more than any cable of the 80s or 90s.

 

[Midpack]

Yes, DVR's are a workaround, and I employ them. But they require pre-planning to watch stuff on TV. When you just want to plop down in your recliner and channel surf, it's impossible to do it on cable because there are commercials every 6-7 minutes, on every channel. Unless you have a specific program you know you are going to watch and can get the DVR set up beforehand to record it, you're going to see commercials.

You already have your DVR setup to record every new episode of the shows (a couple dozen, mostly DW) you watch regularly? Most of our shows are recorded automatically, so “pre-planning” and “setting up the DVR beforehand” is on an exception basis when something new or unusual comes along.

 

[Qs Laptop]

You already have your DVR setup to record every new episode of the shows (a couple dozen, mostly DW) you watch regularly?

Yes I do. I've also done the trick of recording live sporting events then delaying watching the game for about 30-40 minutes, thereby missing the commercials and having the game end on the DVR very close to the actual time the live game ended.

Most of our shows are recorded automatically, so “pre-planning” and “setting up the DVR beforehand” is on an exception basis when something new or unusual comes along.

True, but I go back to the scenario when you sit down in front of the boob tube to channel surf and you end up quitting in frustration because of the sheer number of commercials.

 

[CaptTom]

Remember when cable first became available back in 1979-1980? Tons of content and no commercials. In fact, one of the selling points was "there's no commercials because you're paying for it to be brought into your home."

Almost word-for-word what I was thinking. Remember "For $10 a month you get all the OTA channels, PLUS a bunch of commercial-free channels!"

...If there was a way to purchase ad-free channels ala carte I would do it in a split second.

I don't think you'll see individual channels ala carte any time soon. Too much invested interest competing to be the one-size-fits-all streaming service.

The closest we've come is YouTube, viewed on an ad-block browser. You can select "channels" you like, but you have to wade through the cesspool of click bait and sensationalized BS to find anything of value.

You mean when the channel A&E (Arts and Entertainment) played opera in the evening? Or perhaps when you could actually LEARN something on TLC (The Learning Channel)?

What about the "history" channel? They're just as bad. I've given up on finding anything intellectually stimulating on any for-profit network. There's no money in it. What sells are conspiracy theories, ancient aliens, Sasquatch, and lists of the "top five most shocking..." BS.

 

[Qs Laptop]

You mean when the channel A&E (Arts and Entertainment) played opera in the evening? Or perhaps when you could actually LEARN something on TLC (The Learning Channel)?

What about the "history" channel? They're just as bad. I've given up on finding anything intellectually stimulating on any for-profit network. There's no money in it. What sells are conspiracy theories, ancient aliens, Sasquatch, and lists of the "top five most shocking..." BS.

For me it was MTV. Back then it was music videos, and music videos only. This was a new artistic genre and was addictive to watch. No commercials. IIRC, they were on from 6 am until midnight. Nowadays the channel is full of trashy, raunchy teen dramas and sex themed shows that I would put a channel block on if I still had kids at home. I think there might be an hour long block of music videos on MTV, probably at 3 in the morning.

 

[steelyman]

For me it was MTV. Back then it was music videos, and music videos only. This was a new artistic genre and was addictive to watch. No commercials. IIRC, they were on from 6 am until midnight.

Now you’ve got me thinking Dire Straits! “I want ad-free TV!”?

https://youtu.be/lAD6Obi7Cag