Riding A Cable Remote Control Wave Towards Going Cable Free- Step 1

Following the adventures of a regular urban gal and her family in their
Quest to Improve TV Viewing Options

It’s been happening for a while. It’s something we couldn’t- or didn’t want to- recognize.  It had pretty much become habit.  Some might call it an addiction.  Thankfully it’s not something that could cause irreparable damage to anyone.  Well, what is it? It’s the remote control wave ride that I and my husband have been taking every night trying to find something to watch on television.  And, because this happens so frequently, it’s become a problem. 

So, what to do about watching nothing, yet trying to watch something?  And how much are we paying for this remote control wave ride anyway, given that we’ve rarely been actually watching anything on cable from start to end, unless we specifically recorded it on the DVR.   Our actual cost per program watched must be pretty high and, thus, becomes a relevant decision point. 

Considering Cable Costs

Living in the city, cable access has tended to be the most cost effective for us.  That, and we didn’t want a satellite dish attached to our house.  But, for full disclosure, we’ve looked into Dish, have been Comcast customers, and are currently ATT U-Verse customers.  With three HDTVs, including one HDTV box, our bills have ranged between $195 per month for Comcast services to $145 per month for ATT service.  Net net over the past few years, it seems that the costs have been coming down or stayed the same even as more channels are now available.  These bundled rates include internet access at a speed of up between 12-15Mbps of internet service.  We removed the phone service more than a year ago, relying on our mobiles instead.  Phone service probably cost us about $30/month within the Comcast bundle, which is when we had home phone service.

Interestingly, the topic of going cable free has also become a conversation subject stirring among early adopters of technology.  With the digital conversion of broadcast content, the idea that someone could convert back to an antennae is actually prompting some serious interest out there.  But for acknowledged “tech geeks” or early adopters, the idea that broadcast is as good or better than cable is a huge game changer in the industry.  So my big question is:  Is it possible that we can find all of the content we watch over the airwaves and by using some Internet TV?  Or can we just go the Internet TV route and leave the antennae behind for goo?  Or, more likely, what is the right combination for us that unlocks our access to television programming how we want it and when we want it?

Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program

The first step in my quest for a new television watching experience – either going internet tv only or cable-free and internet tv, we had to first analyze what we watched.  We considered the programs recorded on our DVRs, ‘live’ programs, movies and sporting events, children’s programming, the on demand programming and other additional services like Netflix.  We also considered what we would like to watch beyond typical television, movies and sporting events, including friendly suggestions for us to watch premium channel shows (Tudors or Weeds anyone?).

What we came up with boils down to a few cable channels among the multitude that is currently available.  Some of it was surprising, but most of it was what we’d expect when we peeled all of our watching down to the actual programs we like.  I’ll share these with you next time and show you the data behind it too.  

This project also attempts to address the newest craze among tech junkies going for an Internet TV pure play.   Are we there yet? 

Next week: A basic audit of what we actually watch on cable