Unfortunately this isn’t true of many shows: you cannot get any new episodes from HBO, Showtime, Starz etc until several months after they’ve aired, often not until the whole season is out on DVD too.
And after the first 12 months or whatever, what’s the total?
The same.
I cut the cord about five years ago. I’ve been using hulu and netflix mainly, but also watch some shows on their networks. Hulu seems to be slimming down on their free programming, moving more and more to HuluPlus which is slightly annoying. The main drawback to not having cable is that some shows (Game of Thrones) are never available without a subscription. But, considering I can buy the whole season on DVD, available to watch over and over whenever I want, for less than I’d spend on a month of cable, I think it’s a fair tradeoff.