Cord Cutters:

[vanton619]

Re: Cord Cutters:

Yeah I've taken the leap with cord cutting for the past couple months, and I can say that it has been worthwhile for my family. My TV has a built-in HD antenna, so I still get my basic channels that covers a good chunk of our viewing. For shows that we don't catch and can't DVR from those channels, we have Hulu+. We have Netflix primarily for re-runs of Sesame Street (for the kids) and a handful of other TV shows we like to re-watch. Then, we have access to HBO GO from a friend to cover GoT and BWE. Vudu covers the remaining premium shows. There are a few things I'm missing, like Falling Skies, but otherwise it's stuff that I don't mind falling off my radar. The sports thing sucks, but I get all the Sunday football games I would with cable and then major events are still on the basic cable channels. Also, I have a B-Dubs down the street to catch any other games I want to watch.

[Walter-S_North_Carolina]

Re: Cord Cutters:

This explains a lot! Are you familiar with a 'Mr. Green Jeans'?

No, not quite that far back.

Yeah I've taken the leap with cord cutting for the past couple months, and I can say that it has been worthwhile for my family. My TV has a built-in HD antenna, so I still get my basic channels that covers a good chunk of our viewing. For shows that we don't catch and can't DVR from those channels, we have Hulu+. We have Netflix primarily for re-runs of Sesame Street (for the kids) and a handful of other TV shows we like to re-watch. Then, we have access to HBO GO from a friend to cover GoT and BWE. Vudu covers the remaining premium shows. There are a few things I'm missing, like Falling Skies, but otherwise it's stuff that I don't mind falling off my radar. The sports thing sucks, but I get all the Sunday football games I would with cable and then major events are still on the basic cable channels. Also, I have a B-Dubs down the street to catch any other games I want to watch.

For us, our NetFlix Queue, Amazon Prime Watch-List do not get dented into much. They are still both about 100+ titles waiting to be viewed. Vudu gets used heavily.

The conclusion I have come to is there is simply an overwhelming amount of entertainment content available for a fraction of the cost of traditional MSO service. If it takes a small viewing habit change to save the cost, for us it is well worth it. To get the few things like you mention simply costs more then it is worth to us.

I understand everyone is different, but it appears there are more folks coming to this same conclusion as of late.

[mike568]

Re: Cord Cutters:

My family cut the cord around 2009 or so when Directv kept raising pricing and picture would go out sometimes for no reason so we dropped another coaxial line from the attic so we could watch tv over the air with an outdoor antenna that was in the attic. We had dail-up was the only option where we used to live unless you wanted to pay $200 month plus $200 installation for a 1mb connection with a 50GB data cap for full speed. Then U-Verse came to our neighborhood but there was group of 3 houses that couldn't it yet their was no reason for it. There was houses farther away from main U-Verse box that had it available. When I got my ATT iPhone 4 with unlimited data I signed up for Netflix and watched tv shows on my iPhone 4 until Apple released the HDMI output of the iPad that worked on the iPhone 4. The 3G signal was good in that area so I didn't get that bad of pixilation watching on the tv. Then I also used my iPhone 4 as hotspot with its unlimited data until AT&T threated to put me on a tired data plan so I stopped. A month before we listed the house on market I called AT&T President's Office and asked why we couldn't get U-Verse so they sent a tech out to our area and activated U-Verse for the group of 3 homes that couldn't get U-Verse. We moved to the city (for an unrelated reason) we choose to get Charter HSI 30mb down and 5mb up and a basic tv (over air tv) for $45 a month for a year after that the bill went to $75 with taxes. I have down the math and it would be around $1 cheaper a month to drop the tv part of the bundle. Charter makes you have a cable box but at least I get some the local channels On Demand for free don't worry I would never order any PPV On Demand since Vudu has a better picture quality and cheaper.

I only watch local sports teams play on tv so most games are on local channels that I get. If there is a game a want to watch I will go to BBQ restaurant that shows the games if I don't get the channel it is on.

[quackman]

Re: Cord Cutters:

I would like to cut the cord, but I am a sports fanatic. I would miss way too many sports events without cable or satellite. We don't watch a lot of network TV, just a little. Sports and movies are probably 90% of the viewing going on in my family. Hopefully someday ALL sports will be available online and I too can "cut the cord."

[BlakkMajik3000]

Re: Cord Cutters:

This December will make 3 years since I stopped paying Cox $100+/mo. to watch a handful of channels. In the end, it was about the numbers. We just didn't watch enough content to justify the bill.

I'm a basketball fan, so losing both TNT and ESPN was the biggest adjustment for me. Other than that though, I can honestly say I haven't really missed having cable.

I hooked up a low-profile indoor (no chance I'm getting on the roof) antenna in the living room, which is pretty much only used to watch the local news and network shows like Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, 2 Broke Girls, etc.

In an ironic twist, we actually started watching MORE content after cutting the cord. I think this is because since we weren't always tuned in to the same set of channels, we just started looking up shows that people were watching. I doubt we would have ever paid any attention to either Weeds or Mad Men if we still had cable.

[LuzRinggold]

Re: Cord Cutters:

I would like to cut the cord, but I am a sports fanatic. I would miss way too many sports events without cable or satellite. We don't watch a lot of network TV, just a little. Sports and movies are probably 90% of the viewing going on in my family. Hopefully someday ALL sports will be available online and I too can "cut the cord."

We keep satellite because my husband can't live without college football and I watch two Spanish channels. We are hoping that ESPN3 will partner with Roku to get a channel added and we're hoping that the new SEC sports channel being created will be available on Roku.

I would think that if we wanted to subscribe to ONLY the ESPN channels that it would be pretty cheap. Roku (and other streaming devices) could help with this by offering single channel subscriptions and not making us pay for 100 channels that we don't want.

BTW - Roku did announce that they will soon have a channel for M-GO!

[Walter-S_North_Carolina]

Re: Cord Cutters:

We keep satellite because my husband can't live without college football and I watch two Spanish channels. We are hoping that ESPN3 will partner with Roku to get a channel added and we're hoping that the new SEC sports channel being created will be available on Roku.

I would think that if we wanted to subscribe to ONLY the ESPN channels that it would be pretty cheap. Roku (and other streaming devices) could help with this by offering single channel subscriptions and not making us pay for 100 channels that we don't want.

So if you are way into live sporting events and watching them in your home vs. at a sports bar, then you need the raw content power an MSO or satellite provider brings into your home.

That is not me. I enjoy watching the Masters and the US Open golf. Also the Superbowl and Olympics opening/closing ceremonies. For these few marquee events I do not need be held hostage to the tune of $100.00+ per month for perpetuity. Those all come free over the air by just being subject to commercials.

In between these, we are enjoying our commercial free content in staggering quantities for a fraction of the cost.

Plus, as others have mentioned, the number of streaming content providers seems to be on a steady up-tick. PBS joined the ranks a few months back. Zero cost for on-demand content. Pretty sweat deal.

[Petro49er]

Re: Cord Cutters:

I'd love to cut the cord. I keep my DirecTV for one reason and one reason only. It's to get my SF Giants games throughout the year. If it wasn't for the damn MLB blackout rules, I'd be able to get MLB.tv, but we are in their local market so I can't pay MLB to watch their games due to the blackout restrictions. Maybe someday.

[LuzRinggold]

Re: Cord Cutters:

I'd love to cut the cord. I keep my DirecTV for one reason and one reason only. It's to get my SF Giants games throughout the year. If it wasn't for the damn MLB blackout rules, I'd be able to get MLB.tv, but we are in their local market so I can't pay MLB to watch their games due to the blackout restrictions. Maybe someday.

That may change as more and more people cut the cord and they begin to loose revenue. I didn't know anyone still watched baseball.

[nyunole]

Re: Cord Cutters:

That may change as more and more people cut the cord and they begin to loose revenue. I didn't know anyone still watched baseball.

I wish! Unfortunately, things seem to be heading the other direction: tying the ability to stream sports to a cable subscription. We've already seen that with the Olympics (Comast), and ESPN, but it also is the rule for regional sports networks (Pac-12, Big 10, etc.).

[Walter-S_North_Carolina]

Re: Cord Cutters:

There have been a few reports on subscriptions for MSO and Satellite providers. 2013 Q1 & Q2 saw subscriptions down. Unambiguously. Cord cutters are to blame, according to tWSJ.

[tsken02]

Re: Cord Cutters:

This explains a lot! Are you familiar with a 'Mr. Green Jeans'?

I'm familiar.

[woodrowjr]

Re: Cord Cutters:

I'd love to cut the cord. I keep my DirecTV for one reason and one reason only. It's to get my SF Giants games throughout the year. If it wasn't for the damn MLB blackout rules, I'd be able to get MLB.tv, but we are in their local market so I can't pay MLB to watch their games due to the blackout restrictions. Maybe someday.

This may change soon. Currently the mlb and NHL are in lawsuits over their ridiculous blackout rules. My guess is that it gets settled out of court and the blackout rules will be gone as we know them now. I am about to cut the cord, next week.

I love my Detroit Tigers, but I have a hard time justifying 100 dollars a month for that service. I will use my sling box at my brother's house. You could use a proxy to avoid the blackout rules as well.

[lujan]

Re: Cord Cutters:

This explains a lot! Are you familiar with a 'Mr. Green Jeans'?

...

Those of us familiar with Mr. Green Jeans would also be familiar with Captain Kangaroo. I have also cut the chord mostly over 3 years ago. I have the limited basic cable with Comcrap because it's cheaper to keep the limited basic along with the Internet than to get the Internet package alone.

[Walter-S_North_Carolina]

Re: Cord Cutters:

Those of us familiar with Mr. Green Jeans would also be familiar with Captain Kangaroo. I have also cut the chord mostly over 3 years ago. I have the limited basic cable with Comcrap because it's cheaper to keep the limited basic along with the Internet than to get the Internet package alone.

I am pretty sure they do this to keep some form of TV service in people's home, hoping at some time their mood will change and they will start to watch via cable again and then start to bump up their service.

They figure if they give away TV & Internet for a small amount less then internet alone, at least they have a chance for people to start to watch their TV services again. Otherwise, it is a lost customer.