Poll: When Did You Cut the Cord (Cable and/or Satellite)?

[Midpack]

Evidently cord cutting started somewhere back in 2007-08. We truly cut the cord in Feb 2018 when Dish informed us our monthly charge was going from $88 to $96!!! We've saved thousands, have more good content we actually watch than ever, with ZERO regrets. One of my gripes with cable/satellite was 80% of the channels were total garbage just cluttering up the guide.

That said, our generation is the most resistant to cutting the cord. So how about your household?

Please read the poll carefully, there are two "other" categories. Using an antenna does qualify as cord cutting if you don't pay for cable/satellite.



Somewhat out of date, but I am sure the distribution remains.

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

I cut the cable in early 2013 as an experiment and never went back.
At the time the Netflix DVD program and free streaming channels were good enough for me.
I dumped Netflix probably around 2018 and now subscribe to the Hulu Black Friday deal and occasionally order a paid service for a couple of months. My daughter has Netflix and a few other paid services which I have access to but I rarely watch them. I think I've only watched Tiger King, the Crown and Yellowstone with her password.
There is more stuff available for free than I could possibly ever watch and I don't watch that much TV. I also bought indoor antennas for my TV's when they upgraded the local OTA system to digital.
I bought an outdoor antenna three years ago and it's still not installed, the indoor ones work well enough that I've never bothered to deal with it through Covid.

[W2R]

May 14th, 2014 was my LAST day of Cable TV forever! Definitely worth celebrating. With OTA reception, no need to pay even one cent for streaming, either.

Much to my happiness and surprise, I haven't missed Cable TV or streaming at all. Here's my post on the day I cut the cable:

https://www.early-retirement.org/for...ml#post1448961

[ls99]

About 5 years ago returned cable box. Also terminated watching any TV program.
Decided that watching any TV required sitting and looking at the one eyed monster.

[Happyras]

If it were me, I would dump the Directv, but my wife has a hard time if she can't record her food network shows. Streaming seems to much for her to handle without help. We live surrounded by 60 foot tall evergreens, so OTA is limited. Since we can't record streaming (except I know youtube has this option built in), we have both Satellite and Netflix, Prime, HBOmax, Disney +, etc. Most streaming is free or shared. Our adopted son is hispanic and loves his international soccer so DTV gives him all the spanish and soccer he needs. Hard to replace with streaming, and much more reliable than DSL internet. So, I guess we are stuck unless we go with Starlink.

[Qs Laptop]

I couldn't answer the poll as written because while I still have cable I haven't watched it since Better Call Saul ended. I do watch NFL football via cable but I don't need cable for that.

My answer would be: "I primarily stream programs but I still have cable for sports stuff."

I haven't completely cut the cord, but 2023 is definitely the year for me.

[qwerty3656]

"our generation is the most resistant to cutting the cord"

It's funny, we just this month cut the cord, but our 3 adult children have never had cable since they've moved out. Also, up until very recently we had a land phone line.

[pb4uski]

We were a little late to the cord cutting party. We had cable at our main Vermont home in 2008. When we decided that we wanted tv at our Vermont summer home 25 miles away in a more rural location there was no OTA according to the various web tools and we didn't like the idea of having two cable bills.

So we had Dish Network installed in 2008. When we first installed Dish, they would do 4 rooms free... our flexible installer agreed to install a satellite dish and 3 of the 4 rooms at our main home and 1 room at our summer home 25 miles away... and I paid him separately for the second satellite dish and installation.

In 2010 we demolished and rebuilt the summer home and made it our main home in early 2011. Then we did the inverse... in DW's surname (which conveniently is different from mine), with our flexible installer installing 3 of 4 rooms in the new home and 1 room at the former main home which we planned to sell. In Dec 2011 we sold the former main home and eliminated that "room from our Dish contract.

Since we snowbird, we were going on vacation hold for 6 months while we were in Florida. We went on vacation hold in Dec 2019 paid the ~$5/mongh vacation hold fee until we got back in early 2020, at which point I had learned about YTTV and at $50/month it was cheaper then Dish so we decided to give it a trial month while Dish was still on vacation hold. The trial went well and met DW's approval, so we killed Dish and returned all the equipment and used YTTV for the summer home.

Wouldn't you know it. a couple months later YTTV added some channels that I could care less about and jacked the price up to $65/month. Now $15/month more shouldn't be a big deal but it peed me off so I cancelled YTTV the day after they announced knowing that I could always easily go back to YTTV once the time that we had paid for ran out.

Then I was searching for other alternatives before our YTTV month ran out and came across a webpage where someone plugged a coax cable to the tv and pushed the copper wire nub on the other end of the coax into the slot of the flathead screw that holds the cover for an electrical recepticle and ran a channel scan. I decided to give it a try (it was a slow day). Sure enough, I got one channel, but a channel that I know shares the tower with numerous other channels.

Off to Walmart. Bought 3 antennas and tried them all and got a number of channels. Decided to move to the attic. Got more channels. Tried a few other antennas. Ended up with an YAGI-style antenna mounted in the attic and get ~30 channels... all the major channels except Fox.

Later installed a Fire TV Recast in the attic that "broadcasts" via our home wifi network to each of our 4 tvs throughout the house... monthly cost... $0. All 4 tvs use the same FireTV remote and same Fire TV interface for live OTA, recorded OTA or streaming.

The downside is that at our Florida condo Comcast cable is included in the condo fee and while we could use OTA and streaming in Florida we are paying for cable anyway so we use it. The blessing in disguise is that when we are in Vermont DW can use our Comcast credentials to stream her beloved HGTV, we use the same credentials to watch major golf rounds that are not on broadcast channels, Wimbledon, US Open tennis, etc and I use it to view CNBC.

So the cable in our condo fee for 2023 is $41/mo (we get a screaming deal under our bulk contract) and we pay another ~$40/mo for streaming. We have Peacock from our Comcast cable on the condo, Prime and then flip beween Paramount+, Apple TV+, HBO/Max, BritBox, etc watch a bunch of stuff and then turn them off and another one on. So methinks less than $100/month for two different homes is pretty good.

[FLSUnFIRE]

1998. When I bought this place cable was included in the HOA (but had to rent the box from the cable company); fortunately, after that year the HOA cut the cord (and it was hard, the POS contract -original to the builder required notice 90 days before annual renewal in writing. The first time we tried to cancel with over a months notice they refused to cancel so we were stuck for another year). I rented the box for a while and realized I rarely/never used it and returned it even though I was "paying" for cable. When I visit family/friends with cable, they spend most of the time scrolling through a list of nothing they want to watch! Hasn't got better since 1992.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAlDbP4tdqc

[REWahoo]

Although we longed to cut the cord for may years we weren't able to do so until 1Q 2019. That's when, for the first time in the 20 years we had lived here, we were finally able to get fast, reliable fiber internet service.

Saying so long forever, don't let the door knob hit you on the way out to the Evil Twins (DirecTV and Dish) was a great feeling!

[audreyh1]

Looks like we dropped our cable and went to internet only sometime in 2013.

[brucethebroker]

1999. We "re-upped" for 18 mo. around 2009 when keeping aged family member. Have used Library DVD's and the old Netflix by mail (until Netflix went online, but dropped it during last year's price increase). Watch local over the air TV for news and to follow local NFL team. Have tried a couple of free 90 stream trials. Large selection movies/series at local Library-and no longer a long wait for popular series (Yellowstone, Walking Dead, etc.)-guess most people now stream instead. Have noted some streaming services no longer provide DVD format, but will cross that bridge later-so much free stuff out there.

We try real hard not to become an "annuity" (monthly payments) to corporations providing entertainment content. Read physical local newspaper until 2001 when they became free online. About 5 years ago, they started charging for online subscriptions, about $10 a month. Goodbye. (now charging $1 a month-nice try! More than enough free news online in other places-with ads yes, but the physical newspaper also had ads, so... (Also still read physical books from Library and paperbacks (vacation use) from yard sales.) Guess we have saved thousands over the last 20 years,
may chart it out sometime when I get a few minutes. Earlier poster had the Springsteen song about 57 channels and nothing to watch-I have hummed that one a few times since cutting cable.

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qs Laptop My answer would be: "I primarily stream programs but I still have cable for sports stuff."

I'm sure there are alternatives to cable now for most sports, but I cut the cord after DH died in late 2016 AND Google Fiber became available in my area. DH loved sports programming and I had zero interest. We'd already gotten Netflix. Before I switched to Google Fiber I called the cable company (Xfinity) and asked what Internet-only would cost. It was more than I was paying per month for internet + programming.

Yeah, I miss HGTV and a few of the trashy reality shows on Lifetime but I indulge when I'm in a hotel for the night. Plenty of good stuff on Netflix but far more available in French, German and Spanish (with subtitles), which is a huge bonus for me.

There's a lengthy discussion on NextDoor.com started by someone whose Xfinity bill just jumped to over $200/month. Plenty of cord-cutters there. A few got Internet at deeply-discounted rates; I checked them out and found that they're available only for low-income. One criterion is having kids on the school lunch program, but here they sign all the kids up. One guy said he had it and was living on a tight budget but his discounted Google Fiber was great, capable of running 3 X-boxes at once (!) and his monthly costs after adding a ton of subscription services was "only" $105.

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by athena53 I'm sure there are alternatives to cable now for most sports…

Other than Hulu+Live, YouTube TV, Sling TV and the like - not that I know of, someone tell me more. If there were, cable and satellite subscriptions would fall even faster!

[COcheesehead]

Our new home was supposed to have cable running to it. It had the infrastructure on the block, but someone didn’t tell us or our builder that a critical stretch of about 200 feet of line hadn’t been run under the neighborhood road yet. So when we moved in, no cable. It took about 4 months to get the cable run under the road. In the mean time we figured out how to make do without and will never go back. That was 2020. Serves the cable company right for not digging under the road as expected.

[COcheesehead]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack Other than Hulu+Live, YouTube TV, Sling TV and the like - not that I know of, someone tell me more. If there were, cable and satellite subscriptions would fall even faster!

NFL + you pay $10 a month, cancel whenever you want and get every game - full length or condensed on your big screen. Only catch is you can watch it same day, just not live.
So last season we would go out and play during a sunny Sunday and return home to watch the game on our time. $40 total for the season.

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brucethebroker We try real hard not to become an "annuity" (monthly payments) to corporations providing entertainment content.

Me, too. I am sometimes tempted to subscribe to Nintendo Online for $4/month, but haven't so far. It's cheap but might be the gaming equivalent to a "gateway drug" for someone like me.

[dixonge]

2009-11 - somewhere in there. Lived in an apartment for the last year and had a OTA antenna and internet, no cable. 2011 lived in a pop-up camper. 2012-2015 lived in Mexico. 2015-17 lived in Austin TX - just used internet, no cable TV channels. 2017-2020 - back in Mexico. 2020-2022 lived in RV in states. March 2022 until now, Mexico again. This current tenure in Mexico we finally have no less than *three* fiber optic internet choices! Basic level gets you 50MB download speeds so we can stream anything we want. All services have TV channels as well, but same old crappy choices plus they are al lin Spanish.

We have YouTube Premium for ad-free music and ukulele and piano and spanish lessons, and anything else that we come across, plus Netflix and occasionally Apple TV+.

[Harris4crna]

Cut the cable when I went to graduate school in 2006 and decided to divorce the wife. Matter of fact, I did not buy a TV until 2010 when I returned from Afghanistan following a deployment. After I returned home all I wanted to do was sit on my butt. Now, all I watch is NBA League Pass, YouTube premium and I use a downloading service to watch my TV programs. When I go visit my dad (75yo) he watches regular cable and it kills me. I cannot understand why anyone would have cable. How do they tolerate the commercials.

While I lived in Italy, I started using Usenext in Germany where you can download any TV, movie, audiobooks and so much more. I pay 80 euros per year for 80gb per month. I use a NZB news feed to locate the programs and I download. I have a 1gb internet subscription through Verizon Fios where I now pay $70 per month. I get a military discount. I get my sports from NBA league pass and I download my weekly UFC fights. For those rarity sports events like the olympics or the most recent World Cup I have a friend that allows me to password share. My total annual bill for TV like programming (Usenext, NBA LP, YouTube Prem) is $1K with internet...Not bad.

[aaronc879]

I dropped cable in 2011. It was for financial reasons. If I had the money that most on here have then I would still have cable.