How much do you pay for TV reception?

[W2R]

What is the monthly bill for your TV reception (alone)? Do you get TV over-the-air and spend nothing? Do you get a lot of the premium channels and get a huge monthly cable bill? Or somewhere in between?

I finally decided to switch to digital TV with an HDTV box and lots of extra goodies like music choice, extra channels, and so on. Up to now I have just had bare bones basic cable with no box. It's hard to let that money go! I hope it is worth it.

I think my bill will be about $76/month for TV reception plus cable box so I will vote in the corresponding bracket, $50.01-$100.00 . (My whole bill will include cable internet and will be about $125/month)

 

[73ss454]

I use cable and with internet I pay $147 a month. I use Vonage for our house phone.

 

[FIREd]

My Cable TV & Internet are bundled, so I don't know exactly how much I pay for each. The bundle comes to $105.30 per month. Add to that $28.20 for premium channels (HBO/Cinemax), $9.95 for the digital outlet and $5.61 for various fees and surcharges and the whole bill comes to $149.06 per month.

 

[samclem]

Zero. Fine quality HD digital signals flow into my set through my homemade antenna. Works great. About 8-10 channels, which is 7 more than I watch most days. TV shows get stale and stuffy when forced into a cable, flying through the atmosphere keeps them fresh and alive.

 

[steelyman]

I just received my bill from Comcast, and they charged me $88.90 for television service and $53.95 for Internet. I don't have any premium channels like HBO. Taxes and fees are placed on top of that. These have been creeping up over time, but they have a captive audience in my area.

 

[Ally]

I think that our TV is about $80 with DVR and HDTV, but no premium channels. We have the TV services, home phone with unlimited free long distance and the highest speed Internet for $145 and change. It hasn't gone up more than a couple of dollars in the past 3-4 years. It's Suddenlink.

 

[Khan]

Back in Nov ''10 I turned off the cable; would need converter & antenna.

 

[GregLee]

A little over $100/mo for satellite TV, DirecTV, with two HD DVRs, but no movie or sports packages. Nothing over the air, since I can't receive anything through some cliffs between me and transmitting towers.

 

[travelover]

Free only and then about once a month for a hour or less.

 

[martyb]

Free via rabbit ears. I only get one channel (local, ABC) crystal clear, and one channel (Fox) which is so-so depending on time of day & weather. I turned off the cable about 7 months ago. Unfortunately, I recently (last week) had to have them come back & hook my internet only. My generous neighbor here in the apt. complex moved away, so no more free internet. ummmm...except at work! Still needed it here at home though, so bit the bullet.

 

[powerplay]

I get a number of channels over the air so my cost is zero. It would be hard to justify the costs I see being reported in this thread. My standard has been when I'm at a motel with cable or satellite there are many channels, but very little I want to watch so just not worth it for me.

 

[Mulligan]

Mine is at $100. Get nickeled and dimed to death on it. $5 for each of my 3 receivers, $7 for hd DVR (what kind of bs fee is that!), and $10 for getting hd.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Another one for zero here. I think we can get some channels with our antenna in the attic, though. We last turned it on for the Superbowl and that looked pretty clear to me.

Now that I think about it, I have never in my entire life paid a cable bill. I do pay $19.95 for internet service.

 

[Lakedog]

Zero here (since December). I live in a rural area with no over the air reception so everything I watch is via the Roku, primarily Netflix ($7.99 per month).

 

[73ss454]

Another one for zero here. I think we can get some channels with our antenna in the attic, though. We last turned it on for the Superbowl and that looked pretty clear to me.

Now that I think about it, I have never in my entire life paid a cable bill. I do pay $19.95 for internet service.

So, what do you guys do all night?

 

[easysurfer]

I pay zero as I get OTA tv from a self-built indoor antenna. The reception I get works better than a store bought indoor antenna that I had purchased. (I almost "pretend" that I have a deluxe setup as I splurged with a OTA DVR and Slingbox so I still can pause live TV, and "Sling" my TV broadcasts/DVR videos -- such as catch football -- over to internet when travel).

 

[Packman]

I must be getting ripped. My Comcast bill is $167/month. $103 for TV with no movies or sports - one DVR and two HDTV's, $52 for Internet and $12 for taxes. As soon as I retire, I think my first day will include a call to Comcast and ask for a reduction - or else it's off to Direct TV for me.

 

[aaronc879]

I had a 2 year "price lock" with Time Warner until last month. Since I didn't want to commit to another 2 years they wanted to raise my bill for cable and internet from $117/mo to $163/mo so I decided to cancel my cable completely. So as of right now, no tv channels=no cost.

 

[sheehs1]

I am paying $99.69 to Charter Cable for T.V and Internet.
That includes 2 HD receivers, Basic and Expanded Basic service, no special channels like HBO or Cinemax (tried em...didn't watch them so cancelled).
I hound them....to give me promotions. I still think it is too much to pay for these services that have become a way of life.

Might need instructions on building that antennae....

 

[KingB]

$20 - currently just for basic. We may go for Cox's offer of $90 + tax for phone, tv and internet now that we have more time.

 

[DayDreaming]

A while ago, I dropped cable TV and was very happy with the channels I was getting with my rooftop antenna. I still had Comcast cable for internet only - $65/month.

But then found out that I could add limited basic TV and my monthly cost for TV + internet actually went down to $64/month and I was getting a couple more PBS channels than with the antenna. So in effect I'm paying -1$ for TV.

My cable bill shows that the limited basic TV is $10/month but also says that's part of a 12 month promotional deal, so if my bill goes up too much at the end of that 12 month period, I'll go back to getting TV OTA, and Comcast for internet only.

 

[fisherman]

We just worked on this to lower costs. Called Dish and said we are leaving unless they give us a cheaper plan. old plan was $45 per month and had way more than we watched. New plan is $14.95 and has enough channels to cover interests, about 80. New plan does not have CNN, FOX, or MS-NBC, just local news so peach and harmony again in the house. We also added NetFlix streaming service for about $7.80. We are really like this setup and it save about $20 per month.

 

[rescueme]

$105.99 (includes all taxes) for the Dish 250 package (no premium channels).

That includes HD service, two boxes (we have three TV's and I have a tuner card in my desktop - yes I do watch TV in a open window while on this forum (or listen to a Sirius music station via Dish), so that's four "TV's".

We're in an area that we can only get one OTA station (PBS). It certainly is much less expensive than when I had cable, and our cable company did not offer HD service for many years. After having my second HD unit (without service), I decided to leave them behind...

 

[FinanceDude]

So, what do you guys do all night?

Go to a different restaurant in CHarleston every night, that takes about a year or so.........

 

[Sarah in SC]

A while ago, I dropped cable TV and was very happy with the channels I was getting with my rooftop antenna. I still had Comcast cable for internet only - $65/month.

But then found out that I could add limited basic TV and my monthly cost for TV + internet actually went down to $64/month and I was getting a couple more PBS channels than with the antenna. So in effect I'm paying -1$ for TV.

My cable bill shows that the limited basic TV is $10/month but also says that's part of a 12 month promotional deal, so if my bill goes up too much at the end of that 12 month period, I'll go back to getting TV OTA, and Comcast for internet only.

Holy smokes, you pay $65 just for internet? Do you have DSL possible? That seems amazingly high to me!