To Cut, or Not To Cut

My wife and I are not big time TV viewers. More often than not, the television is on for “background noise” more than entertainment. Whether tuned to a Comcast music channel or the current new offering, we just don’t sit ‘n’ stare at the myriad of programs available.

So, the question arises:  is this worth around $120 per month, including Internet service? I think not.

So, lately I’ve been doing my research to investigate alternatives that will give us what we’d really enjoy watching—nature/animal shows for my wife and sports for me. First of all, living in a decent-sized metro area, all the major networks, NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX/PBS, are available to us “over the air”—FREE. An HD antenna for less than 50 bucks will take care of that for us. A relatively new service, Sling TV, will provide ESPN and ESPN2 for lots of my sports programming for just $20 per month, and that subscription includes AMC, Food Network, History Channel, A&E, TBS, TNT and more than ten other major cable-only channels.

A Roku 3 streaming device, $99 retail, will give us access to hundreds of additional channels without an additional monthly subscription charge. So, what’s to lose? Cut the cable and run with it, right? Well, a recent call to our dear cable provider, Comcast, led us to discover that our current Internet connection would go from $69 per month to $89 per month if we dropped the TV portion of our service! ‘Scuse me…say what???

Obviously, the cable/satellite providers are wising up to the fact that we’re mad as hell out here and aren’t going to take paying for dozens of channels that we have no interest in watching any longer. So, hike the price on Internet to make up the difference when we drop the TV portion of our subscription! Well, this battle is far from over.

As the battle rages, I’ll keep you folks posted on how we’re doing, but know this: $89 per month for a simple ISP account just isn’t acceptable.

Stay tuned…