My cable went out a week ago, and I finally just had it turned off Monday. Man, I do’t miss it at all! All of a sudden I have about 4 more hours a day to get stuff done. I’m watching all the classic movies I “never had time for.”
Anyone else live without television, and like it?
I don’t have cable TV or satellite TV - just the five UK terrestrial channels (I have cable just for the broadband service though).
I lived without television for two periods of more than a year each; in both instances it was because I resented the licence fee and in both cases I was harrassed by TV licence officials who simply would not believe me that there was no TV in the house.
I got a heck of a lot of work and reading done, but it did make me slightly socially disfunctional - it is quite surprising how much casual conversation is actually just about what was on the telly last night. Plus there was the whole embarrassing currency thing - a radically new design of five-pound note was introduced and the first I knew of it was when someone handed me one.
I’m considering getting a freeview digibox, but I expect it to be anticlimactic.
I currently have no television. I’m just about coping. I’ve recently moved and for some reason t.vs just will not work here. Someones coming to sort it today though.
I went without television AND internet for a few days. Now THAT I couldn’t cope with!
I haven’t had cable since I moved, 2.5 years ago. To get cable internet plus channels I’d actually watch would cost about $110 per month. And I can’t afford that right now.
If I really want to, I can set up to receive the terrestrial broadcast channels, but it’s usually too much bother.
There’s a whole mass of celebrity hype and pop culture that I’m completely avoiding, and I don’t miss it at all! Occaisionally I miss the cartoon and science fiction channels though…
I’ve been TV-less for around 7 years now, don’t miss it at all.
I dropped my cable about 5+ years ago and I don’t miss it at all, and on the street I live on there is no way to get any reception what so ever so I cannot even get the most basic channels out there. I don’t miss it at all, but I do have a really nice big TV that I use to watch DVD’s & play video games and I am thinking of getting a bigger TV.
If there is ever anything I want to watch (Simpsons & football) I just go around the corner to a local pub and they will usually put it on one of the TV’s.
Without cable since May, 2002 here. Sometimes things come on I wish I could see (Angels in America; Battlestar Galactica remake), and our rabbit ears won’t pull in the local UPN channel so we can’t see “Enterprise”…but we get “Enterprise” on the computers and a friend taped “Battlestar Galactica” for us.
I’ve loved - LOVED - not having cable because of the kids. They watch PBS in the morning. Sesame Street…Reading Rainbow…Between the Lions. No flashy commercials with catchy music and bright colors. No Nickelodeon programmer telling my kids what they are supposed to want to watch, hear, eat, or buy.
The kids play with blocks and dolls and dress-up clothes. My oldest READS to the little ones a lot of the time when he gets home from school. Yesterday they spent three hours playing upstairs, and I heard them deciding who was going to be a knight, and a swordsman, and a wizard.
They still like cartoons. Saturday mornings they get to gorge on crap (usually ABC, but now they’re starting to like FoxBox - and who am I to say “No ninja turtles!”?) which is, in my mind, a Saturday morning tradition anyhow.
I agree with Mangetout - sometimes I feel socially dysfunctional. A friend will say "Did you see that really funny ad where - " and I cut them off. “NO! Duh!” “Oh yeah.” I’ve never seen “that episode of…” and I did not, in fact, catch “this week’s…” I think the trade-off is more than worth it, but since I have pretty much no social life, I’m not missing much. 
I don’t have a television. I do sometimes feel left out when co-workers start talking about the latest Budweiser ad–but then I’m overwhelmed by a sense of how pathetic these people’s lives must be that they revolve around television.
I think my mom’s going to give me a TV for Christmas, and I’m not going to turn it down. I’ll probably use it mainly to watch movies. If I had kids, though, there would be no TV in the house.
We lived without television for about 5 years (and two homes)…
But then the Cubs won the wild card in 1998 and I had it activated to watch the playoffs.
Then in 2003 summer DirecTV had some database issues and forgot to bill me for months. They called and asked if they could reactivate our service as we’d been cut off months ago. I had no idea so I told them to leave it off. Then Lady Chance told me that the Cubs were in first…
So I kept it.
Then when the Cubs abso-fucking-lutely choked in the NLCS this year I got mad and called DirecTV and told them my television brought me nothing but pain.
I haven’t missed it. What the hell is on TV that’s worth the time to watch? Nothing, in my opinion.
No cable for nearly fifteen years. And one of the things I do here at work is . . . design cable TV systems. Heh.
Going on 10 years without cable. I read alot and occasionally go see a movie. I married a lovely woman who also had no TV and her kids barely knew what they were missing.
I’ve lightened up some and recently bought one of those 13" tv/vcr combos so that we can watch classic movies I get from the library, (why anyone would pay to rent movies in my town is a mystery, the library has about 10,000 titles, including all the Star Trek episodes and all 16 episodes of The Prisoner!) I also let my 13 year old watch the football games we get through the airwaves because he plays football now and I’m not unsympathetic.
I don’t miss a thing. The workplace conversations about TV also leave me shaking my head in pity, and since I read the newspaper and books and listen to NPR I find that I’m actually more aware of current events than they are (this board helps too!).
We stay up most nights talking or playing Risk, Monopoly, Spades, Rummikube… whatever game the youngster has a hankerin’ for. I read from “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” out loud every night for about 6 months and that was very well recieved.
It’s long been a dream of mine to get rid of the TV, but the family would scream, so it stays. However, a downturn in the financial situation is about to force us to drop the cable. I guess that’s the silver lining.
In some places, no cable/satellite=no TV, because aerial reception is too poor. Cable TV actually began as a way to deliver just ordinary TV programming to people who lived in areas with poor reception.
That’s exactly how it is with me. When I dropped the satellite TV I effectively ended our TV watching completely.
And I’m better for it.
We just got rid of our cable last week. We found that if the television was on when our baby was in the room, all else ceased for him. He’d ignore his toys and stare slackjawed at the screen.
We get a couple local channels & PBS. I don’t miss it in the slightest.
My children think I’m living in the stone age, but alas, I have no cable either. It we don’t get it by antenna, or on a dvd, then we’re not watching it.
All my good sports watching is done at a local hole in the wall hangout anyway. If you’re ever in Atlanta, come to Clay’s Sports Cafe. Best wings/pizza/sandwiches in town.
E3
I can have satellite TV in my building and the company that has a monopoly on cable service is a festering pit of evil incompetance. (They shall remain nameless. Hint: Their name starts with the letter “R” and rhymes with “odgers.”)
So we’ve been without cable for about 6 years. The only thing I miss are the Discovery and History channels. The only other shows that interest us we get through the bunny ears.
We probably spend as much on DVD rentals as cable, but it’s much, much more satisfying entertainment.
Sorry, I meant: “I can’t have satellite TV in my building.”
Advice I’ve offered several times here. Talk to your city council, or village administrators, or county commissioners - whoever. Cable companies can operate only where they’ve been granted a franchise. And the folks above are the one who grant that franchise. If your service is crappy enough and you can build enough support, or convice your local officials to take on the task, other cable operators will entertain “overbuilding” your community.
On Sunday we went from having three channels to having none. I will miss the CBC and CSI, but little else. (How will I spend my Saturday nights without Hockey Night in Canada ? Oh dear, that never occurred to me … I guess I’ll be spending more time in the pub. Which can’t be bad, in the end …)
I don’t want to be one of those annoying people that’s always on about not having a TV, but since everyone else is always on about having a TV, I don’t see why I would be the annoying one …