Could I Really Do Without Cable TV?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’ve been on antenna-only for about 1.5 years now. It’s not too bad. I have a HDTV and TivoHD to record shows. I get about 21 channels even though I’m 40 miles from the nearest city. My total TV expense is $12 a month for Tivo service. High-def over-the-air broadcasts are really beautiful, the olympics look great. Cable and especially satellite compress their broadcasts to a certain extent.

I’ve bought a couple series through eBay on DVD recently (That 70’s Show, The X-Files, Reno 911, etc.) But even if I bought one series a month I’d still be paying less than the ~$50 a month for cable.

Also remember if you have a fast Internet connection, you can see tons of shows for free on http://hulu.com, and I believe you can pay NetFlix about $20 a month to watch as many movies as you want.

22

Unfortunately there are too many shows that I really enjoy for me to be able to cut the cord. I do, however, have Tivo record them so that I can watch them on my own schedule and fast forward through commercials so I can watch an hour show in 45 minutes.

My biggest complaint is the lack of a la carte programming. I expect that 90% of the channels that I recieve are never watched by anyone in my household.

And I had to go to the second tier subscription to get 2 channels that were on the must-have list if I was going to have satellite at all.

23

[QUOTE=rackensack]
I’ve never had cable or satellite service as an adult.
[/QUOTE]
Me neither.

I can take some of the money I would have spent on cable, spend it on TV shows on DVD, and my TV-entertainment needs are amply met, with no commercials to sit through and no worrying about what’s on when.

24

[QUOTE=janis_and_c0]
Alice, is it just this particular cable company you’re fed up with?
[/QUOTE]

No, I have no particular beef with them except that they take my money every month. I’m lately on a saving spree- I stopped smoking, made my son a latchkey kid, and now no cable bill. Maybe I won’t be broke all the time anymore, and that’s what I’m looking forward to! Any extra family time or time for hobbies or reading will be a bonus, but it’ll be nice. I’ll still have my high-speed internet and my Netflix.
Oops- I must’ve missed the thread a couple weeks back because I wasn’t thinking about d/c’ing it at the time. Sorry.

25

I actually want to get rid of my cable but my roommates won’t let me…

26

When I was 17 I became bored. I looked over and realized I was watching TV. I got up and went outside. I have not had cable since. I can paint, play guitar, do rudimentary plumbing and carpentry, garden like a mofo, play drums, fly RC airplanes, have an extraordinary collection of books I tend to reread, and fix all sorts of strange and odd things.

I’m 33 and I believe releasing the TV addiction to be one of the best choices I have ever made.
(Netflix is a good idea tho’)

27

I went for 3 and 1/2 years without television. Didn’t miss it at all. The only reason I have it now is because I live with people that can’t stand the idea of being without the idiot box. If I was on my own again, I’d go tv-less again.

It’s not really the expense, although basic cable around here is something like $60 a month. It’s more that I can rarely find anything worth watching. The endless stream of reality shows the past few years doesn’t help matters. 98% of what’s on is garbage, and the other 2% isn’t enough to justify the price. I wouldn’t spend $60 a month on books, games, music, or movies, and those are things I like a lot more than television.

How I got rid of my cable was, I was writing a check to the cable company one day when I realized the last thing I watched was the Super Bowl. Which aired around the time I wrote the last check to the cable company. That made me start thinking about whether it was worth it to pay for a service I rarely used, so I called Comcast, told them to come pick up their box and other crap and cancel my service. For Steeler games, I just went to someone else’s house to watch, and bought most of the sitcoms I did watch on dvd.

28

A guy at worked asked me if I had seen wsomething on TV… I said no, and realised that I hadn;t “sat and watched” TV for some long time… at least a month…

I am moving soon, and will get a nice big TV, probably, but won’t bother with cable… DVD’s and ps2 are what I am into anyway…

Cable costs will porbably go topwards paying for more DVDs and PS2 games anyway…

Once digital TV comes in, I might get an antenna, and run the signal through a “box”…I am more into local stations anyway, and its free.

FML

29

No cable here. Haven’t had it for 4 years. Think of all the money I’ve saved. I’ve spent more time exercising and pursuing other interests. Anything I want to see can be downloaded or found on DVD. I even threw out my TV the other day, so I can proudly claim I don’t own a TV anymore as well!

30

I could, no problem. (My husband could not.) I only watch TV at all when I’m really too tired to do anything else, so I could watch anything and not care. Even with a DVR, I just don’t have the time to stay caught up on shows.
You’d have to pry my high-speed internet from my cold, dead hands, though.

31

My brother Cervaise once made a very good point about television — and he may not have been the first, I admit. Television is Time Pornography.

You sit down and burn hours in front of the television watching people, all of whom have time to do interesting things because they’re not watching television. At six you get home, microwave some burritos, and plunk down in front of the TV. On television people have time to hold dinner parties, make cookies, go skiing, visit the beach, have a bake sale, wash the car, take the cat to the vet, see the kids in the school play, take a vacation, try a new hobby, draw, paint, sculpt, read, sing, dance, embrace, weep, laugh, mourn, and fall in love.

Then at eleven o’clock at night you yawn and say “Well, time for bed. I’d do all those things too but I just don’t have time.”

32

We don’t have cable, satellite, Tivo, HD, or any of that stuff. Just an old pair of rabbit ears. And we somehow survive.

33

[QUOTE=Fish]
My brother Cervaise once made a very good point about television — and he may not have been the first, I admit. Television is Time Pornography.

You sit down and burn hours in front of the television watching people, all of whom have time to do interesting things because they’re not watching television. At six you get home, microwave some burritos, and plunk down in front of the TV. On television people have time to hold dinner parties, make cookies, go skiing, visit the beach, have a bake sale, wash the car, take the cat to the vet, see the kids in the school play, take a vacation, try a new hobby, draw, paint, sculpt, read, sing, dance, embrace, weep, laugh, mourn, and fall in love.

Then at eleven o’clock at night you yawn and say “Well, time for bed. I’d do all those things too but I just don’t have time.”
[/QUOTE]

I’ve heard other people make the “time pornography” quip and I think it’s bullshit every time. It only makes sense if you ignore the fact that you aren’t always watching television and do do those interesting things at other times. My parents liked TV and still made it to every Little League game, did all sorts of yard work, cleaned the cars, took us kids on yearly vacations and spent plenty of time with extended family members. Oh, and to say that “reading” is a worthwhile activity and not time pornography is a joke (at least in this librarian’s opinion).

Also …and this is the biggie, so wait for it… The people on television shows aren’t real. They NEVER watch TV. The only activities that make up their lives are “interesting” things. If the people on TV shows were real, they’d kill for a few hours of mindless television watching.

34

The less you watch television, the less you turn it on at all. It’s a downward spiral.

35

Nope. Sports. If it wasn’t for those, though, I’d get rid of it in a heartbeat and go the all-DVD-Hulu route.

36

Sports and news.

I could live without all of them but:

  1. ESPN
  2. ESPN2
  3. ESPN News
  4. CNN
  5. MSNBC

I could get South Park on iTunes.

37

In post-Soviet resurgent imperial Russia, cable will watch you!

38

Cable TV content reminds me of what Benjamin Bernstein (IIRC) said in the 1960s of popular music–to the effect that it was about 95% garbage, but the other 5% was so creative and well executed that it was worthy of a thinking person’s time and attention. To me the five percent makes it worth the time and money. I’m too busy these days anyway to spend much time watching the other ninety-five.

And, of course, I’ve never lived in an area that didn’t have reception issues.

Crafter_Man, will you get a converter box next year, or just drop the TV altogether? BTW I liked the picture of your house in the other thread.

39

To the OP: Yep, TV is pretty well unnecessary these days. I pay $15 a year for the Straight Dope which gives me several hours of entertainment a day. hulu.com has free movies and TV shows with a pretty decent selection and very minimal commercials. And for anything hulu misses, you can generally purchase via either Amazon Unbox or iTunes. Shows available online are usually made available during the middle of the night following their showing on regular TV.

[QUOTE=BiblioCat]
There are some things I miss, like Mythbusters, but I can live without it.
[/QUOTE]

Seasons 1 through 5 are fully available on iTunes.

40

[QUOTE=Justin_Bailey]
I’ve heard other people make the “time pornography” quip and I think it’s bullshit every time. It only makes sense if you ignore the fact that you aren’t always watching television and do do those interesting things at other times.
[/quote]

Many people don’t. The average person watches 4 hours of television daily. 49 percent of people in the U.S. say they watch too much television. 70 percent of parents say they want to limit how much television their children watch.

Sure, you can use TV responsibly. Not everyone does.