Why Are You Still Paying for Cable TV?

March 09, 2011, By 154 comments

It’s Not for the Die-Hard Sports Enthusiasts (Yet)

I say this because you won’t have access to ESPN, etc. I’m personally not much of a sports watcher, so this isn’t a factor for me, but I know it’s a deal breaker for many others. You’ll have to watch sports through an antenna on your TV.

Your Wife Won’t Be Happy

Bravo will be gone. HGTV, MTV and E! will all go bye-bye. "Mad Men" will be gone. Unless your wife is super frugal and loves saving money more than she loves "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," there will be some withdrawal symptoms. My wife is kind of still whining about it and I’m still trying to sell her on our freedom and independence and all the money we’re saving. I’d say I’ve won the battle, but only time will tell who really wins this war.

I—for one—love that with a little creativity and technology I can outsmart “the man”—in this case, Comcast. Viva la Internet!


 

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Comments (154):

Curt H. Sports can be watched through ESPN3.com. I have been doing this, cable free, for a year. And it is AWESOME. - 11/18/2011
Carriann A. I pay almost $200.00 a month for cabel, land line and internet. I all ready have a play station three. Now if I cancel cabel where would I get my internet from? I would really like to cut that bill in half. The only extra channels I get is HBO. - 11/17/2011
Andy G. Nice article, but there are two things to be mindful of: 1) As we all know, big corporations have lots of money because they know how to make and keep lots of money. Companies such as ComCast and TimeWarner offer both services. Recently both companies have implemented (or attempted to implement) pricing structures similar to that of cell phones which limit the amount of data you can transfer per month. For example, your data cap may be 2GB per month - after you stream 2GB worth of data, a per MB charge will be applied to your monthly bill. This change will help to offset the large drops in revenue that they see, and make sure you're still paying premium dollar for your entertainment. Now, that said, there's no need to panic - Time Warner attempted to implement this rate structure in Rochester, NY and customers by the hundreds lined up to cancel their service. I know it's already being done by some providers in some markets, I'm just not sure which. 2) You don't necessarily have to cancel your cable either. I, as well as some of my friends, have also had tremendous savings from the cable companies by calling up and simply mentioning that you can no longer afford the service. In my case, Time Warner cut $30/month off of the bill, AND I got a free second box and free DVR. Not too shabby for a 10 minute phone call. This "arrangement" is good for the next two years (no contract). One other twist to this, is if you have friends that don't currently have cable, then surely they are bombarded with cable tv offers that are ridiculously inexpensive. Ask them for a couple of the mailed offers and then ask the cable company why after having been a loyal customer for so long you are not afforded the same savings. Works like a charm every time. Good luck! - 10/23/2011
Kevin S. Cord cutters-check out Veetle which I just started using recently and offers low bit-rate streams of movies over a hundred channels or so (all for FREE) I have 21mbps dsl in Maine and love all the free content out there. - 10/14/2011

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