Update on Cord Cutting (Cable TV) 2017 - 2020

[JoeWras]

With both Hulu and CBS All-Access I have been quite willing to pay an extra $4-6 or so a month for commercial free programming for the short time that we had them. Other than a handful of shows that I was particulrly interest in I didn't find much to get excited about.

I guess this is where the industry is going: seasonal subscriptions. Unless they can produce continuous compelling content, people will come and go.

I haven't subscribed to Disney+ yet. I'll let a few seasons of Mandalorian get in the can first, and then binge it.

 

[ziggy29]

IME that one is much better... but still for my location all the channels that I get are red or grey suggesting that I would need a roof-mounted antenna or "extreme measures" to get them but my attic antenna gets them fine (with a couple exceptions).

Yeah, perhaps so, though I prefer erring on the side of being conservative. I'd hate to buy an attic antenna because the tool says it should work, only to learn later that I need more horsepower, so to speak.

 

[REWahoo]

Yeah, perhaps so, though I prefer erring on the side of being conservative. I'd hate to buy an attic antenna because the tool says it should work, only to learn later that I need more horsepower, so to speak.

Order it from Amazon and return it if it doesn't do the job?

 

[Time2]

I think TVFool is more accurate:

TV Fool

Last I knew TV fool was not updating. I used TV fool for years.

 

[ziggy29]

Last I knew TV fool was not updating. I used TV fool for years.

It may not be. That said, in the vast majority of cases, little has changed except for a few stations changing frequency (say from high UHF to high VHF) and perhaps changing power a bit.

 

[pb4uski]

Yeah, perhaps so, though I prefer erring on the side of being conservative. I'd hate to buy an attic antenna because the tool says it should work, only to learn later that I need more horsepower, so to speak.

Order it from Amazon and return it if it doesn't do the job?

Exactly. In getting to the point where I get the channels I get I have bought 4 antennas and returns 3. The first two were from Walmart and the second two were by mail from Channelmaster. Interestingly, the least espensive $40 antenna that I bought at Walmart has worked as good or better than all the others.

 

[MissMolly]

For those who don't mind watching shows the next day, and want the ability to stream and record shows, you can look into PlayOn. They currently have their annual Thanksgiving sale of $34.99 for a lifetime license.

https://www.playon.tv/offers/upgrade/

You are limited in what you channels/networks/streaming service/whatever you want to call it you can record from, but by purchasing the one-time license, you have the ability to skip commercials. If commercial skip is enabled, once you have recorded a show and you are ready to watch it, you will be prompted with "Do you want to skip commercials?". You click on "Yes" and the show plays and automatically skips commercials.

Some of the channels require logins, so you will need a subscription, others do not. It just depends.

You can set up one-time recordings or series recordings.

The channels available are:

• ABC
  Amazon Prime Video
  CBS
  Charter
  Spectrum
  Crackle
  The CW
  Disney+
  Fox
  HBO Max
  HBO
  Nordic
  Hulu
  NBC
  Netflix
  Peacock
  PBS
  Roku Channel
  Showtime
  Showtime Anytime
  Tubi
  Vudu
  Xfinity
  YouTube

 

[RonBoyd]

For those who don't mind watching shows the next day, and want the ability to stream and record shows, you can look into PlayOn. They currently have their annual Thanksgiving sale of $34.99 for a lifetime license.

You do, I believe, need a computer and a way to connect it to your TV for this to work. (I highly recommend it, BTW)

 

[pb4uski]

Another issue for some is that recordings are limited to 720p.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

For those of us who grew up before VCRs and DVRs, commercials were a way of life. And sometimes they were painfully long. A 30 minute show would have a minimum of 10 minutes of commercials. .

I don't think this is accurate. As far as I know, commercial breaks have indeed gotten longer. There are a few articles that break this down, but this fella came up with this:

-In 1952, 13 percent of the time was spent watching commercials (only 4 minutes out of every half hour!)

-In 2018 that number had increased to 32 percent or 19 minutes of the hour.

 

[beowulf]

At one point in TV history I believe there was a law or agreement that limited the number and length of commercials on any show. They have indeed become longer - the ones near the end of an hour long show can be 4 to 5 minutes each. Which is why most people use a DVR so they can skip commercials. The TV companies and their sponsors know that, so they add more commercials. Airtime ain’t free. There was a huge fight when VCRs first came out (before cable) with TV stations wanting to put a surcharge on each VCR and tape sold to make up for lost commercial revenue. I remember something similar by the recording studios when the first cassette tapes came out. None of it ever happened. Now you can pirate recordings, shows, movies from the internet. The world has changed.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Airtime ain’t free.

Hey, I get it. And I am more than willing to pay for the content. As a matter of fact, I bet there are a decent number of folks that would even pay a premium for that...I am one (for the few shows that I do really like) but it's almost impossible to do so. There just has to be more money in it for the content owners to sell ads than it is for the end consumer to pay extra to opt out of them totally. Of course, this isn't and end all be all...I readily admit that there are plenty of choices with no ads; Netflix, Amazon, etc.

DVRs were great, but they are getting smart with this, too. Our cable company only has a cloud based version and there are several shows that you cannot FF no matter what you do. Even a couple of channels seem to let you FF, but then will kick you back to the beginning of the show.

 

[Hopeful]

Hulu has a Black Friday deal of $1.99/month for 12 months for their ad supported subscription. Only for new customers. Apparently they have had the same promotion previous years, but this is the first year we cut the cord.

 

[JoeWras]

Other black Friday deals:
https://thestreamable.com/news/best-2020-black-friday-deals-on-streaming-services

I'm thinking of biting on the $12 per year CuriosityStream offer.

 

[Midpack]

I should do a poll on what users pay for TV streaming (or maybe TV all sources) without internet. But there are probably too many caveats.

We find ourselves using Hulu Live and nothing else for $55/mo, about to go to $65/mo out of laziness in part, mostly because DW simply won’t tolerate the complexity that comes with getting what she wants using a variety of services/apps/sources. There’s no way around this for me. I hooked up an antenna twice to show her how many “free” channels we could have including all the major networks, she flatly refused to deal with switching input sources - period. Same with third party DVRs, definite NO.

We’ve never been seasonal subscribers, but we probably should. We’ve never done Netflix (unheard of I know), Amazon, HBO, or the like. DW loves movies and I’ve offered to subscribe, she always says no

Live news and especially sports remain a draw for us, or it would easy to drop to on demand steaming only and save much more.

But like everyone else it appears the remaining consolidated major providers are positioning themselves to keep their content exclusive - killing off (or making them prohibitively expensive) bundlers whether streaming, satellite or cable. It’s annoying to see channels splinter off month and after month.

Will bundlers, one source for all popular content, disappear eventually?

Will live TV disappear, with everything on demand someday (not soon)?

So I muddle along paying more and more for less, but still saving a lot versus cable or satellite, so far.

 

[JoeWras]

It is really interesting, Midpack, how I've changed over the years. Somewhere earlier in this thread I may have complained in a discussion to you how much easier cable is over something like Hulu+live, and that's why I was keeping it (direct channel input, return to last channel button, etc.)

Today, I'm now a mad app-flipper! My, how I've changed.

DW has just disengaged from TV. She never was much of a TV person. She lets me drive. She jokes that someday she's going to have to learn how to operate the new TV because she has no clue.

Like any bad habit, I had to bite the bullet and just drop news+sports to see if I could live without. After two months, the desire wore off. I can still get a hit of sports with OTA for key games. PlutoTV and others have some news. Philo added Newsy. That's enough.

We currently subscribe to Netflix and Philo, and use Tablo for OTA. Works pretty well.

I get HBO Max for "free" with my AT&T internet.

I expect more unbundling in the future. I'm coming to terms with it as long as I don't have the big streaming bundles overlayed on it.

The biggie for us are the FOX RSNs. This is a trouble area since both Hulu and YTTV have dropped them. They have all but announced they want to unbundle into their own service, soon. Cost unknown. If YTTV or Hulu pick them back up, we may seasonally subscribe for some sports.

 

[Time2]

All I pay for is internet, $50 mo, for 60MBPS.
I need to complain, I have two friends with 100MBPS and pay less than I do with the same company.
We have OTA, Modbro and USTVGO.TV, Pluto TV along with Amazon that we very rarely use.
This is kind of silly, in that we have 50x our yearly expenses, so we have plenty to spend on cable or, any streaming service, but what we have seems to work for us.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Will bundlers, one source for all popular content, disappear eventually?

Will live TV disappear, with everything on demand someday (not soon)?

So I muddle along paying more and more for less, but still saving a lot versus cable or satellite, so far.

One source gone? I think so. Well, until people get tired of dealing with 37 services and there is a "revolutionary service!!!" that will bring it all together in one place...for a so, so reasonable price. What's old is new again!!!

Live TV going away? Maybe OTA, but since sports will be a thing for a while...I don't know how that would not be live for a very long time.

I have certainly bitched about the whole thing enough in this thread, but I am like you...it's all about the DW. If it wasn't for her shows/wants/needs...I would simply have an OTA antenna for local news for weather/etc. and I would just outright BUY the few shows I watch. It would be much cheaper and a whole helluva lot easier!

 

[RunningBum]

If it wasn't for her shows/wants/needs...I would simply have an OTA antenna for local news for weather/etc. and I would just outright BUY the few shows I watch.

I don't know if she'd be willing to use a different app, but you could get a Fire Recast or Tablo to watch OTA TV without switching TV inputs.

 

[JoeWras]

I don't know if she'd be willing to use a different app, but you could get a Fire Recast or Tablo to watch OTA TV without switching TV inputs.

But you may need to switch apps.

Next week I'm going to have to have a Roku 101 lesson with DW.

The Tablo helps a lot because we don't have to switch inputs to the actual TV antenna input, and the Roku. I think once she gets the app thing, she'll be fine.

She can drive a car with a manual transmission. She's got this!

 

[W2R]

I should do a poll on what users pay for TV streaming (or maybe TV all sources) without internet.

How about $0.00/year?

To me, this thread is hilarious since everyone posting in it seems to be paying as much for streaming services as they previously paid for cable TV. To me, that completely obliterates the entire point of cutting the cable. Apparently I'm an oddball since most seem to see this differently from me.

 

[JoeWras]

How about $0.00/year?

To me, this thread is hilarious since everyone posting in it seems to be paying as much for streaming services as they previously paid for cable TV. To me, that completely obliterates the entire point of cutting the cable. Apparently I'm an oddball since most seem to see this differently from me.

The frog boiled in the water as the temperature rose.

YTTV or Hulu+Live would put me at about the same price, or darn near to it. This is due to their aggressive price rises. It is also one reason I dropped them. These services have a few downsides from cable, but mostly upsides such as multiple devices, TVs and users. In a multi-tv household, they likely will be cheaper. But not much. And the temperature continues to rise (dropping regional sports networks).

 

[davebarnes]

Streaming all the way, baby

everyone posting in it seems to be paying as much for streaming services as they previously paid for cable TV. To me, that completely obliterates the entire point of cutting the cable

Actually, at this point, cable vs streaming services is no longer a price issue.
It was when we switched from cable to Apple TV + Hulu Live. We saved about $60/mo. Of course we have added Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max, and PBS Passport while Hulu Live has increased in price. So, now the cost differential is probably $20/mo or less.

But, the streaming services are way more flexible. This is worth a lot to us. We can watch what we want when we want.
One genre that has so much more available is documentaries. Watched Somebody Feed Phil last night.

We also get better video quality than Comcrap provided. Well, not for House Hunters International (356 unwatched episodes, LOL), but for The Mandalorian. Our new LG OLED TV "demands" better quality.

 

[Midpack]

How about $0.00/year?

To me, this thread is hilarious since everyone posting in it seems to be paying as much for streaming services as they previously paid for cable TV. To me, that completely obliterates the entire point of cutting the cable. Apparently I'm an oddball since most seem to see this differently from me.

That's simply not true for most if not all who post here, like we don't know the difference in cost? The only way you could make that argument legitimately is if you were a one person or one TV household (it's pretty close to a push then except for the contract obligation with cable/satellite)
OR
maybe if you wouldn't have internet service other than to stream TV (I don't actually know anyone without internet anymore, though I am sure there are some).

Dish Network told us they would increase our heavily discounted service from $84 to $96/month in Feb 2018 when we cut the cord. Since then we've paid $45/mo for PSV, then $45>$55>$65/mo for Hulu Live. We've saved quite a bit since Feb 2018 and that'll continue for who knows how long. I don't doubt they may converge someday, but not anytime soon...

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I don't know if she'd be willing to use a different app, but you could get a Fire Recast or Tablo to watch OTA TV without switching TV inputs.

We used Fire Recast for a while but had connectivity issues that made it a pain (like our other AMZN devices) to use consistently.