I just got cable tv after almost 10 years of living without it. I had an antenna in the attic, and got my five or six channels just fine. I promised my wife (and me) when we moved into a new house, we would get and HDTV and HD cable service to go with it.
I love the crystal clear picture on the HD, but otherwise I still find myself channel surfing for something to watch. 
But at the sports bar there are a bevy of buxom beauties bringing beer. If you have that at home, well, can I come over? 
We went without TV (cable or otherwise) for about 3 years, and felt very good about the decision. It freed up lots of time to waste on the internet. It was not hard, and it quickly became our preference. We watched a lot of TV on DVDs, but it was commercial free and rather nice to be able to go from episode to episode. We got kind of spoiled. Never did I feel I was missing anything I couldn’t make up for on DVD.
We just moved, and we’re back to cable, and also feel good about that. It was a hard decision because we really liked not having TV, but we decided to get it back for 3 reasons:
We’ve had TV again for one week now and it’s already worth it for the Olympics alone.
Do it! I grew up without a TV and have never had one in my house except for a three-year stint with roommates (still no cable). We spent our childhood playing games, talking to each other, reading books and comic books, and playing outside. As for music, people, culture, animals, accents, etc., mentioned upthread, we got that from *actual * music, people, culture, animals, and accents. Now we have the internet to get all the news we need. Of course, you can watch a lot of TV on the internet now anyway. It was an adjustment for my husband, who is used to TV, but oh, the freedom from the constant noise/pollution/inanity piped into your home? Lovely.
I’ve been without cable for about 18 months. I do miss TV Land, Discovery, VH1, and the History Channel. Got a chance to catch up on them at a hotel recently, they’re still good except VH1, which seems to have degenerated into a reality TV channel.
Anyway, I have a 42" plasma and get about 20 channels over-the-air, about half in very nice widescreen high-def. Cable will charge you for receiving a lot of content you can get for free. Also have a TivoHD to record all the good stuff. I like a lot of the PBS shows like This Old House and Nova, and the local Fox stations show plenty of good stuff like Seinfeld, Simpsons, and Reno 911. The primetime network shows are pretty decent, I like “Life”, “Pushing Daisies”, and “The Big Bang Theory.” Cable was nice, but it’s really not worth $50+ a month to me. My TV expense consists of $12 a month for the Tivo service.
I also have a PS3 and plenty of games/DVDs. I prefer one-time expenses over monthly expenses.
We do not have cable or satellite TV. Just rabbit ears for us. We also don’t have a video game console, wireless Internet, or any of that other crap. We live in a log cabin in the middle of BFE. (Pic.)
Do you not have wireless internet because you don’t want it or have no practical use for it (e.g. you only have desktops), or because it isn’t available where you are?
Sad to say, the weak content and identity of basic cable channels has infected PBS. Even good shows on the commercial cable channels --the ones that aren’t about ghosts, UFOs, or Bigfoot–have to intersperse numerous long breaks for life insurance and denture adhesive commercials and similar clutter. I’ve noticed that PBS often shows the same material and therefore have to have just as much clutter in order to to fill up the hour. The only difference is, since PBS doesn’t have commercials, they have endlessly repeated announcements of upcoming shows. It’s marginally better than denture commercials, but it’s still clutter.
This is what CATV was initially intended for. I grew up in an area with poor off-air reception, so everyone in the neighborhood eventually got cable. Initially it was just the same channels you got with an antenna, but the ‘empty’ channels now had stuff. There was a channel called Tempo which was a lot like Turner Classic Movies today. It was on channel 12 if you had Theta (which eventually became Adelphia). Then there was the Z channel, which was probably the first recent-release movie channel. You got a glossy magazine every month that had articles and other info about the movies that were going to be shown that month.
I don’t live there anymore, but still need cable just to make the TV work well. I don’t watch it all that much anyway.
Oh, please. I realize you live in Ohio, but are you saying that dropping cable was a significant factor in your being able to do that?
I do know that it would hardly make a difference in California or New York.
I’ve noticed that PBS shows like Nova seem to be going for as much flashiness as substance as well…
This is us. We’ve never had TV (cable, satellite, or even rabbit ears), so when we do sit down to watch something, we *watch *it. I’ve been without TV for 16 years, and I can’t imagine ever going back to it. (Doesn’t mean I don’t like TV shows; I just watch them on DVDs.)
