Update on Cord Cutting (Cable TV) 2017 - 2020

[Cobra9777]

I just wanted to let folks know that Fitzy TV now accepts Spectrum cable credentials. Unfortunately no locals, but numerous other cable channels.

Interesting. IIRC, you have Spectrum internet and YTTV at home and Xfinity(?) in Florida. So how are you getting Spectrum cable channels via Fitzy? Do you also subscribe to a Spectrum TV service?

 

[pb4uski]

I'm using my mom's Spectrum credentials... she subscribes to Spectrum cable.

 

[kcowan]

This is almost exactly what my experience has been with DirecTV over the past several years, and, like you, I also expect that being able to call in, threaten to cancel, and then get a great deal will not be possible for much longer. I was able to do this successfully about 3 months ago (getting my monthly bill down to $90 for TV & HSI combined), but I'd guess when my monthly discounts and credits run out early next year, they won't be willing to offer enough new ones to retain me as a customer. DirecTV is losing subscribers at such a huge rate that it wouldn't surprise me at all if AT&T were to announce that they're winding the service down completely within the next couple years.

I have had good luck with deliveries from Best Buy (65' in LR) and Costco (55" in MBR). The outside of the boxes were scuffed but the inside of the packing was perfect.

Amazon and Walmart for smaller items.

 

[euro]

I'm using my mom's Spectrum credentials... she subscribes to Spectrum cable.

Tsk, tsk, tsk

 

[BeachOrCity]

I'm using my mom's Spectrum credentials... she subscribes to Spectrum cable.

I have a spectrum account at a vacation rental and the credentials won’t work outside the home in a different geo.

This is for the spectrum app, not for HBO Go etc.

How does it work for you?

This could save me my yttv 65 bucks that I use for my own home.

 

[BeachOrCity]

So annoyed yttv decided to broaden their bundle and increase price.

They must know that most customers did not want these extra channels for the price.

This combined with the roku and fire stick wars with HBO and peacock do not bode well for cutting the cord continuing to save a lot of money long term.

 

[JoeWras]

They must know that most customers did not want these extra channels for the price.

Redditers are really ticked.

They also theorize this gives them the Daily Show which certain demographics crave.

Now that I have hulu, I see it differentiates them there, too.

Not saying it is right. I was all in on YTTV until this price rise. I didn't even want to look at hulu. Well, "made me look." When I cut the cord, I'm going to start with hulu.

 

[statsman]

So annoyed yttv decided to broaden their bundle and increase price.

They must know that most customers did not want these extra channels for the price.

Seems most of the streaming services have gone up. When I first looked at the costs and channels back in November 2019, YTTV was $49.99. Now, it's $64.99. Hulu + Live was $44.99. Now, it's $54.99.

 

[JoeWras]

The price rise is true. However, the "cable" companies are also raising prices. Quietly.

 

[statsman]

The price rise is true. However, the "cable" companies are also raising prices. Quietly.

The before-mentioned AT&T Uverse phase-out is in effect raising prices. AT&T claims the costs are the same as with AT&T TV, but the latter has less channels.

Honestly, my DW's wish list makes cutting the cord tricky. The Discovery suite of channels is pretty much everywhere, which is good. But channels like AXS TV, Reelz, Newsmax, and Science are less common, and neither YTTV nor Hulu have them in their base packages, with only the Science channel available on Hulu with their Entertainment Add-On (another $7.99/mo).

Immensely frustrating, and it will become a reality when our Uverse promo ends in early November. Either "cut the cord", however I am able to manage it, or pay the full price for Uverse (while it remains available). There are enough services to get the channels DW would like to keep, but it would end up costing more than our current promo. Swell.

 

[Midpack]

Redditers are really ticked.

They also theorize this gives them the Daily Show which certain demographics crave.

Now that I have hulu, I see it differentiates them there, too.

Not saying it is right. I was all in on YTTV until this price rise. I didn't even want to look at hulu. Well, "made me look." When I cut the cord, I'm going to start with hulu.

I’m sure The Daily Show is a draw for many. But you can see most of TDS on free YouTube less than 24 hours later every day, and a weekly summary too. That’s how I keep up on TDS, so we’re happy with Hulu + Live. I just hope Hulu doesn’t go after Viacom. They’re an expensive add, I remember when PSV lost Viacom over a big increase.

 

[JoeWras]

So I've been trying hulu and I like the quality of the stream for live hockey. I had issues in apparent down-buffering on YTTV for the same when I tried it earlier this year.

But the hulu interface stinks. Their web site isn't much better. When trying to set up profiles, it errored out. A pop up error message said: "Clear your cache." Ok, come on. That's crappy programming.

I might be able to live with it, however, the surprise for me was ability to fast forward through DVR content. You can only do that if you get their enhanced DVR add-on. Whoops, another $10, so equal to YTTV.

So, I'm back to trying to figure out which to sign up for. I might try both simultaneously for a month, eat the extra cost, but get a good side by side comparison to see which works for me.

 

[ivinsfan]

Joe they are really slicing and dicing the streaming offerings to look like the "cheapest" service. Much more complicated then it was even a year ago. To us personally, the biggest disappointment was Sling TV. they did not lower their price but dropped all local live sports, so a big downgrade in service. We had used Sling quite a bit.
For us it's Hulu during sport (baseball and NCAA football) seasons and no live streaming in the off seasons.

Hulu just did an interface upgrade which appears to be an improvement, works very well on our fire stick.

 

[JoeWras]

Hulu just did an interface upgrade which appears to be an improvement, works very well on our fire stick.

I'm finding the interface is stable on my Roku. I'm just not sure I like it. Then again, that may just take getting used to.

I had problems with the YTTV app on Roku. It would occasionally hang and do odd things. This was earlier this year. I had to reboot Roku a few times because of it. Other apps were fine.

As long as the live app on Roku is good, I can live with the errors on the Hulu web page since it is mostly set it and forget it (set up profiles). However, having a customer "Clear your browser cache" shows a certain level of amateur programming. As a retired software engineer, this indicates Bad Things to me in their programming quality department. Building in work-arounds into error messages indicates underfunded or undereducated programming.

 

[ivinsfan]

Joe it is all about cutting costs....apparently Hulu is putting their money into live sports for now anyway.

 

[tb001]

Joe they are really slicing and dicing the streaming offerings to look like the "cheapest" service. Much more complicated then it was even a year ago. To us personally, the biggest disappointment was Sling TV. they did not lower their price but dropped all local live sports, so a big downgrade in service. We had used Sling quite a bit.
For us it's Hulu during sport (baseball and NCAA football) seasons and no live streaming in the off seasons.

Hulu just did an interface upgrade which appears to be an improvement, works very well on our fire stick.

I was just coming in to post about how happy we are with sling! The cheapest by far for tv services and it’s exactly what we want programming wise. We have sling blue I think, mainly for news stations. Everything else we watch is on either prime, Netflix, or a specialty app. But we don’t watch any sports. In fact, the sports surcharge we were paying with cox, which was mandatory, was a big driver for us to cut the cord.

 

[Rustic23]

I got an add from Dish today:
$60 for 100 channels (I think 100)
$40 for 25mp internet unlimited
$5 a month for each additional TV ($10 in our case)
$110 (however I don't think this includes tax and charges)

I now pay $130 for YTTV and Internet. For the small difference we will stick with YTTV and WindStream.

 

[ivinsfan]

I was just coming in to post about how happy we are with sling! The cheapest by far for tv services and it’s exactly what we want programming wise. We have sling blue I think, mainly for news stations. Everything else we watch is on either prime, Netflix, or a specialty app. But we don’t watch any sports. In fact, the sports surcharge we were paying with cox, which was mandatory, was a big driver for us to cut the cord.

We really liked sling too, because you could get either ESPN or a package with local live sports and didn't have to pay for both of them if you didn't want both

We'd still be Sling customers if they had Fox Sports North.

 

[REWahoo]

I got an add from Dish today:
$60 for 100 channels (I think 100)
$40 for 25mp internet unlimited
$5 a month for each additional TV ($10 in our case)
$110 (however I don't think this includes tax and charges)

I now pay $130 for YTTV and Internet. For the small difference we will stick with YTTV and WindStream.

I got something similar from Dish and noted in the fine print there was a price guarantee for 1 year but the deal required you to sign a 2 year contract. No thanks, I'll pass on a second year BOHICA experience.

 

[statsman]

I was just coming in to post about how happy we are with sling! The cheapest by far for tv services and it’s exactly what we want programming wise. We have sling blue I think, mainly for news stations. Everything else we watch is on either prime, Netflix, or a specialty app. But we don’t watch any sports. In fact, the sports surcharge we were paying with cox, which was mandatory, was a big driver for us to cut the cord.

I was just checking out their channel lineups. It looks like Sling Blue plus their Total TV Add-on would give DW every channel she would like (still waiting for the "must have" and "really would like" lists to be sure).

The only hitch would be the local channels. While not a large part of her TV viewing, there are the occasional network TV series that she likes to watch. Our distance from Austin makes OTA a bit of a challenge.

Speaking of which, how do cord cutters deal with DVR-ing OTA channels?

 

[REWahoo]

Speaking of which, how do cord cutters deal with DVR-ing OTA channels?

Get one of these: Tablo Dual LITE OTA DVR for Cord Cutters - with WiFi & Automatic Commercial Skip

 

[Cobra9777]

...For us it's Hulu during sport (baseball and NCAA football) seasons and no live streaming in the off seasons...

We are almost to that point... Hulu during baseball season for access to our local Fox RSN. Then in the offseason, we'll use Locast and Fitzy for the locals with cloud DVR ($10/mo total). We have no OTA.

We might also add one of the low-cost options like Philo at $20/mo. Philo has most of the "cable" channels that we like, and can also be integrated into Fitzy for a one-app solution.

We currently have YTTV but I'm pissed about the price increase. I hated the Hulu interface when we did our free trial. But I suppose I could get used to it for $10/mo savings over YTTV.

We also like the Hulu on-demand library, which is $6/mo by itself. So, one could argue that Hulu is $16/mo cheaper than YTTV (depending on how much value you attach to the on-demand content).

 

[Cobra9777]

Quick addendum to my last post...

Our all-in cost for YTTV is now $70/mo with tax. If we did Hulu during baseball, then Locast+Philo+Fitzy the rest of the year, the average monthly cost is $45. That seems much more in line with how we actually use live TV, which is primarily for baseball, news, and some network stuff.

Downside is the twice-per-year switching between the two systems. DW will complain but then adapt. My 86-year-old MIL will be the challenge.

 

[JoeWras]

Currently, sports is important for me. However, as each league's players decide they are politicians, it gets less important. I'm down to one team I care about (from a previous of 5), and it requires the local Fox sports affiliate. This may not last.

Along with that, I avoid all news. I'd like a news-free service. As I write this, something came across saying WGN is now going to show news all evening with a new program. Great. More news.

Philo could be in my future. Or, I may just stream only and dump all live some day.

The pandemic is changing a lot of things. It has changed my behavior big time.

 

[zinger1457]

I got something similar from Dish and noted in the fine print there was a price guarantee for 1 year but the deal required you to sign a 2 year contract. No thanks, I'll pass on a second year BOHICA experience.

You can get a 2 year price guarantee directly from Dish, 190 channels for $59.99, includes 1 receiver, $5 for each additional receiver. Locking into a price isn't a bad deal IMO, there's only one way prices for all live TV services (including streaming) are going and that's up.