Are you tired of paying $100s of dollars to your local cable company? Are you one of the people who watch only three channels out of the hundreds you receive? Are you still trying to figure out what all these additional “taxes” and “fees” on your bill mean? If so, then you aren’t alone. You and millions of others are trying to figure out why their cable costs continue to increase each and every year. The idea of cheap cable TV is gone and the same goes for satellite TV.
In this guide, I will try and help you save money on cable by completely cutting the cord. That means you either cut your cable off completely and/or reduce your selection of content. Depending on how much you pay Time Warner Cable, or Comcast, or Cablevision, this could be a huge annual savings.
But before I get started, I feel compelled to rant about the greed of these companies.
Greed, Greed, and more GreedOne of my favorite websites to read is one called
Techdirt. You’ll find it on my list of
useful websites. Well, one of the topics that comes up quite frequently is the legal battles cable, satellite, and networks like to play with anyone who tries to make their content more available whether it be online, mobile, or elsewhere. We’ve seen it with YouTube, Dailymotion, and the slew of other user-generated video sites out there.
Well just recently, there has been
another legal war brewing between Time Warner and the broadcast networks. See, Time Warner has released an iPad application that allows you to watch a limited selection of your channels. Makes sense right? It’s just another “screen” to watch the cable TV service you already pay for.
Au contraire! The broadcast TV networks have instead decided to sue Time Warner for offering the service. A TV executive is quoted stating that they
have to sue, because they "have a chance to win.”
Viacom is first in line and while they did report a net income of nearly a billion dollars last year, you would think that Viacom investors would find their money better invested in growth and innovation, rather than lawsuits and stagnation.
If we can’t even watch the service that we pay for on the screen of our choice, than what’s next? Are we going to be limited to certain television sets that must pay dividends to the TV networks?
These are the types of companies that stifle innovation. We’ve seen the same bullying in the music industry and the television industry has been going nuts with the advent of online video. God forbid that we have anything else to watch that’s of interest besides what they spoon feed us via our cable TV.
So I ask, are these really the type of people we want to be giving $1200+ a year to?
Cutting the Cord - Your Cable TV OptionsThere are companies out there that are actually trying to make content more accessible and put their money towards innovation rather than legal wars. So let’s get started and see if cutting the cord to save money on cable is right for you.
First off, let’s be clear that cutting the cord to save money on cable or satellite simply isn’t for everyone. While a lot of cable TV content is available for free online now, much of it isn’t and quite a bit of that is sports content. So with that being said you need to start by listing out the channels you watch most and determine your “can’t-live-without” content.
Once you’ve got your list, the first thing you are going to do is buy
a TV antenna. No, we’re not talking about the bunny years of years past where a fuzzy, snowy picture was commonplace. Antennas now are digital and since networks went digital in 2009, you can now watch most of your local channels are in full HD. Not to mention, this is real HD, not half-HD or compressed HD signals like the ones the cable and satellite companies send us.
So now that we’ve got our HD antenna hooked up to receive local news and channels, cross off any shows that were on these channels. This should leave us with only “premium” channels as the cable and satellite broadcasters call them.
See if the TV shows you watch are available online. A great site to start with is
Find Internet TV, which lists sites that show full episodes as well as provides a guide to finding sporting events online (more on that later). Using their site, you can search for most of the premium network’s websites like A&E, Bravo, MTV, etc. and find their full series online.
Hulu is another site that contains just a wealth of full episodes from A&E, ABC, BBC, CBS, Comedy Central, Lifetime, MTV, National Geographic, NBC, Spike TV, and so much more. Cross those shows that you can watch online off the list.
Now we may be left with some original series by other premium channels such as HBO, Showtime, etc. that still haven’t gotten with the program and made their series available online, even at a cost. That leaves us with two choices to rent or stream content via
Netflix or
Amazon Prime. Both
Netflix and
Amazon Prime have instant, on-demand, Internet streaming capabilities for movies as well as full seasons and episodes of TV shows. Additionally, both offer a free trial so can check them out and see what’s available.
While some of the content may not be directly available to stream straight to your TV, you can always rent the DVD/Blu-ray from Netflix if you can wait till your show comes out in that medium.
Netflix streaming costs only $7.99 a month and contains a huge library of movies and TV content. If you want to rent DVDs or Blu-rays, it will cost a bit more.
Amazon Prime will run you $79 for the entire year ($6.60 a month approximately) and get you free two-day shipping on Amazon.com. However, Amazon Prime is newer to the online TV streaming stage and doesn’t offer the magnitude of content Netflix does yet.
Lastly, you probably are saying that you want to watch your favorite shows on the big screen or in any room. I completely understand. Most laptops and computers now have a HDMI out port that will allow you to hook them up to your TV. Some desktop PCs that you will find at Best Buy, etc. actually are called “Media Center PCs” that are made to hook up to your TV and act as a DVR, TV guide, etc.
You can also stream content from Netflix to your Wii, Playstation 3, or Xbox 360 if you already have one of them in the household.
So now that we’ve went through the options for finding your shows and content online, we need to address the last big issue and that’s sports. Believe it or not, most large sporting events are shown online. For instance, the Masters Golf tournament, Olympics, FIFA World Cup, NCAA Basketball, NCAA Football, Major League Baseball, and so much more is available live online. You just need to know where to look and that’s where Find Internet TV helps us out. Find Internet TV tracks down sites where we can watch these events
live online. While not everything is available on there, it is definitely one of best
Internet TV guides.
The most popular two sporting events that are not entirely available online are NFL games and those NCAA games that are made available via cable TV pay-per-view. Why those NCAA networks haven’t smartened up and offered online TV pay-per-view in addition to TV pay-per-view is beyond me. Regardless, the NFL Sunday Ticket costs a ridiculous $335. That price could go even higher after this year’s players lockout. In comparison, a full season of Major League Baseball online via
MLB.tv with DVR capabilities, which takes more resources due to 1000s of games being played, costs $119.95 for a year.
Our recommendation for those NFL games and local sports games are to support your community restaurants and bars. You could order a beer and some food and still come out on top.
The Future – Any Alternatives?It's doubtful anything in the near future will change other than your cable or satellite bill due to increases in charges. The broadcasters want more money and so do the cable and satellite companies. They both blame each other for the rising costs but in the end, we all pay the bill.
Recently, there was a push to create laws forcing the major cable and satellite companies to offer what “à la carte” options, meaning you and I would have the ability to choose what channels we want to pay for and receive only those channels. Unfortunately, nothing has happened. The bill was called the Family and Consumer Choice Act of 2007 and never left the committee after 2008, probably thanks to some lobbying and campaign contributions. Many channels and networks would have naturally seen a reduction in subscription fees and advertising revenue (since we don’t care about these filler channels), so cable providers, satellite providers, and programmers naturally decided it was a bad idea for them.
In ConclusionIt will take some planning, time and new equipment but canceling cable is possible and could save you thousands of dollars over years to come. Let’s do a quick breakdown:
If you pay $100 a month for cable or satellite, that comes out to be an
annual savings of $1050. Naturally, you need to have broadband Internet for any Internet TV streaming to happen. You won't be able to stream either Netflix or Amazon Prime over a dial-up connection.
If you want a HD DVR box to record your local TV, you can pick up a
Hauppauge HD PVR for $190 and record all the shows you want straight to your computer for later viewing. Naturally, anything you watch online will be on-demand and you can watch when you want.
Cutting the cord is certainly a liberating experience and delivers a message to cable and satellite companies that we, as the consumers, are in charge of what we watch and what we pay for, and there is nothing their legal army can do to change that.
If you have any other money saving tips on “cutting the cord” and going without cable TV, please share them!
