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Cord-Cutting Still Doesn't Beat the Cable Bundle (wired.com)
I'd like to cut the cord, writes Brian Barrett for Wired, then, the very instant I allow myself to picture what life looks like after that figurative snip, my reverie comes crashing down. From an article: Cutting the cord is absolutely right for some people. Lots of people, maybe. But it's not that cheap, and it's not that easy, and there's not much hope of improvement on either front any time soon. Not to turn this into a math experiment, but let's consider cost. Assuming you're looking for a cord replacement, not abandoning live television altogether, you're going to need a service that bundles together a handful of channels and blips them to your house over the internet. The cheapest way you can accomplish this is to pay Sling TV $20 per month, for which you get 29 channels. That sounds not so bad, and certainly less than your cable bill. But! Sling Orange limits you to a single stream. If you're in a household with others, you'll probably want Sling Blue, which offers multiple streams and 43 channels for $25 per month. But! Sling Orange and Sling Blue have different channel lineups (ESPN is on Orange, not Blue, while Orange lacks FX, Bravo and any locals). For full coverage, you can subscribe to both for $40. But! Have kids? You'll want the Kids Extra package for another $5 per month. Love ESPNU? Grab that $5 per month sports package. HBO? $15 per month, please. Presto, you're up to $65 per month. But! Don't forget the extra $5 for a cloud-based DVR. Plus the high-speed internet service that you need to keep your stream from buffering, which, by the way, it'll do anyway. That's not to pick on Sling TV, specifically. But paying $70 to quit cable feels like smoking a pack of Parliaments to quit Marlboro Lights. You run into similar situations across the board, whether it's a higher base rate, or a limited premium selection, or the absence of local programming altogether. It turns out, oddly enough, that things cost money, whether you access those things through traditional cable packages or through a modem provided to you by a traditional cable operator.
Do you really need all of those channels? When I canceled my cable, I switched to over-the-air networks (for free), and Netflix + Amazon Prime (which is effectively free since I'd have prime even without the streaming).
If you want the same set of channels you had with cable, it stands to reason that it's not going to be cheaper.
I've found more than enough to distract me without cable, I don't need to replicate it with streaming.
For between $20-$50 up front, plus maybe a $20-$50 tuner, you can get several channels at no additional cost!
I get about 25 channels with my crummy $10 antenna in a window plugged into my television. If I paid for an rooftop antenna, I could probably get about 40 channels.
Beware gentle readers, some television companies don't include a built-in tuner with their televisions anymore.
Because this is the way the cable industry thinks. When I called my local cable company 17 years ago and told them to discontinue my cable service, and after all the back and forth about how I simply didn't want it and wasn't watching it, and after they finally agreed to disconnect me, their final words for me were "see you in a couple of months". The person on the other end of the phone just simply couldn't grasp the concept of a person without cable.
That attitude hasn't changed. It's not that they're trying to trick you here, they honestly just don't understand the concept. This is also why people are cutting the cord, because the cable industry doesn't understand their needs. The fact that they cling to the concept of airing shows at a certain time on a certain day and not just adding them to the VOD library at that time, the fact that they cling to channel packages instead of lone channels, the limitations on viewing on specific devices in specific locations. All of these things show that they just simply don't understand their customer base.
This "article" is just a shill for the cable companies trying to convince people not to cut the cord, but as usual, they've just shown how little they understand about what people actually want.
As a cord-cutter who has quite happily used an internet-only service provider, alongside a standard antenna for access to broadcast television... I would absolutely never consider a fully blown out cable package for my own use. I mean, sure... the author's math sounds mildly interesting and all, but let's glance at the math required to replicate something like my own setup, for comparison:
* Antenna in the attic or on the roof - one time cost of $30 to $100 or so
* A couple of Hauppauge USB television tuners - one time cost of $50 to $150 or so each
* A home theater computer capable of recording shows from those tuners - one time cost of $400 to $3000 or so (it's a computer... you can pretty much pick your price)
* Your preferred media streaming receiver(s), to allow you to stream from your HTPC out to any other TVs in your house over your LAN - one time cost of $40 to $200 or so each
Are you sensing the theme here? No matter how cheap your cable subscription is, it's only a matter of time before my own one time cost setup -- much of which I'd have bought anyway -- saves me money.
"But it's not one-to-one! You're missing out on sports channels and HBO and SyFy!"
Yup: all true. And honestly, I'm no worse off for it, either.
Any TV manufacturer that advertises a television flat screen will include an ATSC tuner; that is required by federal advertising laws.
A flat screen that does not have a built in ATSC tuner is a monitor or flat screen. They can be used to view "TV" programs, but that does not let vendors advertise them as TVs.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
with the exception of one TV show that pre-dated my cord cutting. South Park. Long story short if you give up watching TV cord cutting is effective.
The only streaming service I had for quite a while was Amazon, not that I used it often, but because it came with Prime which I had for shipping. Technically during that era I had a dozen or so TV channels with the absolute bare minimum cable that came with the Internet connection, but considering I didn't even have the cable box plugged in most of the I didn't count it. I think half of those channels were in languages I didn't speak.
Then I got married. My wife brought her Netflix account along and South Park now requires Hulu to watch properly, all in all I've given a lot of time to evaluating the various streaming services over the past few years. That, and I'm watching TV shows again. My findings:
1. Netflix is where it is at. The best software for game consoles, the best interface, the best in reliability, and a great selection and the best originals.
2. Hulu is a reasonable substitute with a few alright original shows. They pissed me off early on because nearly everything I wanted to watch gave me a message about not being able to use my TV to watch it and they had commercials even if you paid. Those issues are a thing of the past, but I actually canceled my free trial account early over those issues early on. Again, my wife brought along an account so I gave it another shot. We got the more expensive no commercials tier which is now available and it's better than it was. We have problems with it dropping out occasionally like it just can't make due to lack of bandwidth. She likes to have Hulu around because apparently the best yoga videos are on there. We aren't paying for it right now - I think the plan is to pay for it during South Park season and let it go otherwise.
3. Amazon Prime. The interface is crappy - it's written for a 1080p widescreen and even if you're using an original Wii that didn't do 1080 or you're using a Playstation 3 in SD mode it is hard-coded to wide screen. You can't read hardly any of the text on an SD screen due to the crappy interface. Even when using a 1080 screen the interface - regardless of console - feels constrained and a little unintuitive. They have some reasonably good shows, not that I watch them. My coworkers have raved about how great The Man in the High Castle is. I'll go ahead and believe them, I don't have time for another show. That being said I'm going to make sure I watch The Tick. Their selection is reasonable at times, but feels lacking most of the time. The poor arrangement of their interface and their tactics of only giving one season free etc... Is all geared around getting you to shell out extra money. Used to all the Prime stuff was in one bucket, but they're beginning to introduce new buckets. Almost like they're cable and they want you to pay for the Horror channel now. I know for a fact some of the shows that were in the general bucket in the past were pulled out and put into the new specialized buckets. The juries still out on this being a good idea or not. I'm not messing with it for one, I can't stand using their software on my consoles because it's so crappy, I can't bring myself to care about their add-on buckets.
So, even though I don't give a rats ass about live TV at all I have lots of family that really wants local channels and channels in general. I've given a serious look at Playstation Vue but haven't subscribed, because as I said, I don't care about channels. I think if I were to have either of my parents/either of my parent in laws, or my grandmother move into me for whatever reason I would seriously consider at least giving Playstation Vue a go. It's cheaper than cable.
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About 35 miles outside of Seattle, and I get 56 channels with my roof top antenna here. Also, it is running through a HDHomeRun so a TV tuner on the TV itself doesn't even matter. With that box, it is a dual-tuner that'll stream the channels to just about any device on the network, including the media box on the TV, desktops, laptops, tablets, cell phones. This setup has been a dream ever since I installed it! ~$150 total for all of the hardware/wiring combined.