Most Americans Find the Cost of Cable TV Is Too Darn High

I have not paid for cable TV for 12ish year, I do pay comcast $90 a month for 1gig/100 internet. Own my own router and modem. For TV we have a flat paper style antenna that pics up 40+ channels. All the basic local news channels and a few other randoms worth watching. The other 25 are all in Spanish.

One thing I have learned, once your promo price expires call up and tell him your promo expired and it now cost to much, you either need a new promo or need to cancel.

Never, ever let them force you into a bundle. Even if they say its required.
 
ThatsAgood1jay said:
I pay $180 a month for ATT Gigapower + U-Verse TV in Dallas, I hate it. The internet is great, but the Cable is so overboard, we mostly watch Netflix/HBO/MTOD, the only thing I watch on regular TV is sports, I do follow a lot of racing, but there are much cheaper/better ways for me to get access to those.
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$120 a month for U-Verse 80 down / 24 up...JUST internet (including $30 unlimited data fee)...in Fort Worth....you sophisticated jerk!
 
I dunno if I'd say the cost is too high, rather than say the value of it's content is too low/non-existent. If it had quality content, the current price wouldn't be so outrageous.

Instead, you get the same old reruns, a couple shows that are basically the same as the old re-runs (let's make moar cop & doctor dramas!), or the "reality" shows which are all the same thing in a different setting (which is irrelevant since they focus on the drama,) all in an endless stream of commercials. If they sold their current service for $10/month I still wouldn't buy in. I don't even have an antennae for OTA networks anymore, even free is too much to sit thru the junk they air. I do stream stuff to watch though.

I was always more of a documentary or informational type viewer rather than someone who watched dramas and stuff. TV is absolutely horrid in that regard. Someone on youtube with a cheap camera and an internet connection can make a more informative & entertaining program than a network can with massive amounts of money, a studio, and teams of people working on it.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I still think there are some use cases for TV, but not in the old fashioned "we broadcast whatever we want and you come watch it" way.

They need to kill off all of these stupid channels and keep a handful of them that produces quality content.

The whole "you get 50 channels if useless home remodeling, cooking and other terrible reality shows whether you want it or not" philosophy needs to end. It should never have existed in the first place.
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But all those people need jobs! Besides we all know its not for us, they are producing art and we will watch it the way they want us to! /sarcasm
 
IcePickFreak said:
I dunno if I'd say the cost is too high, rather than say the value of it's content is too low/non-existent. If it had quality content, the current price wouldn't be so outrageous.

Instead, you get the same old reruns, a couple shows that are basically the same as the old re-runs (let's make moar cop & doctor dramas!), or the "reality" shows which are all the same thing in a different setting (which is irrelevant since they focus on the drama,) all in an endless stream of commercials. If they sold their current service for $10/month I still wouldn't buy in. I don't even have an antennae for OTA networks anymore, even free is too much to sit thru the junk they air. I do stream stuff to watch though.

I was always more of a documentary or informational type viewer rather than someone who watched dramas and stuff. TV is absolutely horrid in that regard. Someone on youtube with a cheap camera and an internet connection can make a more informative & entertaining program than a network can with massive amounts of money, a studio, and teams of people working on it.
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no the cost is too damn high. I work in the industry and can tell you the prices are high. Every year the number one topic of conversation at expos for cable / paid tv providers is who do we lower the cost of services for customers. The problem is when you have all the content providers charging ungodly rates you have to pass that onto the customers. In this day and age few companies make a profit from selling you TV service. That is just something tacked onto internet to give a little more value to the service.

We had one local station want $6.75 per sub. We don’t carry that one. A sports team that started their own station wants something like $9 per sub.

once the rebroadcast cost come down then cable cost will come down.
 
Exavior said:
no the cost is too damn high. I work in the industry and can tell you the prices are high. Every year the number one topic of conversation at expos for cable / paid tv providers is who do we lower the cost of services for customers. The problem is when you have all the content providers charging ungodly rates you have to pass that onto the customers. In this day and age few companies make a profit from selling you TV service. That is just something tacked onto internet to give a little more value to the service.

We had one local station want $6.75 per sub. We don’t carry that one. A sports team that started their own station wants something like $9 per sub.

once the rebroadcast cost come down then cable cost will come down.
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Honestly I don't know why people bother with broadcast/cable tv anymore. There isn't much on it except things to fill time with. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video all have better content and you don't have to sit around waiting until a specified time.

Content aside that's actually the most important part for me. I have a very busy life and its far more convenient for me to watch something when I want to not when some arbitrary scheduler decides to slip it into the lineup.
 
Not an American, but the cost is way too high. I cut the cord a few months ago and I haven’t looked back. Disney+, Netflix, crave and NFL game pass are more than enough to fulfill my families entertainment needs. I haven’t missed having cable yet ... and I’m saving at least $120 CAD a month.
 
Ten years. No TV. I can't be in the same room with on running. Too much of an annoyance.
 
I watch plenty of shows on discovery and the history channel.. and at times local sports. The wife is still hooked on reality shows.

Our young kids ages 10 and 14 could care less about tv. Busy with there phones and games.

We have netflix and now Disney + but dont watch it too much.

So what would be my options to get all that?

Like cable mostly because of the DVR. To record our shows and watch them whenever is great.
 
Haven't most thought this since it started? I mean at the time tv was just something you watched for free after buying one.
 
live tv is only necessary for news, weather, sports, and talk/variety shows that reference current events.

Hulu live is way too expensive. Cable tv is obviously way too expensive. Paying for tv and still getting commercials is bullshit. It's double dipping bullshit. Ads are a huge part of why live tv is not worth it .

Cable tv used to be commercial free ... because at some point, the public was considered too intelligent to pay for something and still have to watch the thing that broadcasters said they needed to use to pay for the content. Obviously that's long gone.

So in the meantime, we'll just pirate every show not made available in a form that makes sense thru a streaming service of choice (not one of the dozen single studio streaming services that have popped up) and strip out the commercials that shouldn't be there in the first place and go along with our day.

Sick of the always much louder, and way too lengthy ads that take up 20% of a show's runtime ... Zero qualms about skirting the law to eliminate them. And as far as ads in websites go, if web masters want to keep people from avoiding ads on their sites and still get traffic, force the ads to be static images without any javascript. No tracking ..no animation and audio and video and functional ui's, etc. A static image is pretty safe (most of the time) and usually light weight and so would have way less of a legitimate reason to block. I do not care about the issues advertisers have in connecting sales to campaigns etc... billboards and broadcast commercials have worked for them for generations ...there's no special code included in any of that. They dont need it in digital ads. So no sympathy from me from any poor sites that get upset when no-script is running on all the ad/tracker domains and it kills their ads.

and live tv channel packages are STUPID.

TV channels you buy based on the broadcaster is stupid. Bundling them even more so. I watch tv based on what I like to watch, so what makes sense if you want to have something other than a pay-per-view experience is to have genre based packages, similar to netflix categories or so.. If i only like to watch sci fi and comedy, i can buy those categories for current season tv (i dont think most content should be "live" except what i listed above). Category based packages makes far more sense than broadcaster based ones.

Also if i'm streaming tv and not getting it over the air, it's not cool to pretend like your service is multi-casting the streams and it's not being sent to me on-demand. I shouldn't have to wait a day or so to watch something if i decided not to watch it when it aired on normal cable tv. I shouldn't have to record it to a dvr to watch it whenever I want. These licensing agreements to cripple streaming services so that cable tv doesn't look as bad of an option as it is, is infuriating ... and it makes pirating your content soooooo much easier of a decision. So yea... great decisions they're making. I feel sorry for the people who just aren't willing or able to circumvent the nonsense.
 
Cut the cord 15+ years ago when my DirecTV bill rose from $59 a month to $129+ in less than two years... all new taxes/fees/etc. Don't miss it one little bit.

Houston has 80+ crap broadcast channels that have 95% of the exact same stuff for free.

Roku box with Netflix + Britbox + Acorn subs cover the rest (thinking about even canceling Netflix)

/Roku and Pluto channels (both free) are now my main go-tos
//cable became dead to me when A&E/History Channel etc switched to all reality tv all the time
///might add PBS Passport to replace Netflix sub - if they'd take Paypal billing :/
 
Is torrenting still a thing? I used to raw dog movies years and years ago. Wonder if that's still a thing.
 
Lumpus said:
Cut the cord 15+ years ago when my DirecTV bill rose from $59 a month to $129+ in less than two years... all next taxes/fees/etc. Don't miss it one little bit.

Houston has 80+ crap broadcast channels that have 95% of the exact same stuff for free.

Roku box with Netflix + Britbox + Acorn subs cover the rest (thinking about even canceling Netflix)

/Roku and Pluto channels (both free) are now my main go-tos
//cable became dead to me when A&E/History Channel etc switched to all reality tv all the time
///might add PBS Passport to replace Netflix sub - if they'd take Paypal billing :/
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I like pluto tv too, even though it's all reruns of old crap set on repeat and has commercials (but the service is free so that's expected). I like pluto tv because of how it does it's channels. It makes _FAR_ more sense than the way regular channels are done on live tv pkgs. Plus it has a kalloopy 24/7 channel (eye candy) .... me and the wife basically use that channel as the tv's screensaver and background noise channel..
 
Darth Ender said:
live tv is only necessary for news, weather, sports, and talk/variety shows that reference current events.
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With respect its not strictly necessary for any of that. You can get all your news online straight from whatever you like best (CNN, Fox, AP, BBC etc). Weather you can get for free from weather.gov or just by googling "weather <zipcode>".

Sports? Meh whatever I don't watch them as they are distractions meant to placate the masses. But those of my friends that do watch them do so by paying for access online or going to bars.

Talk/variety shows? Streamable also would be my guess - straight from the network that provides them. Though why anyone would care what the opinion of some random talking head is a bit beyond me...
 
whether it's online or not, it's still best viewed live as it's happening.

That was the point in calling out those types of shows. As opposed to watching them a day later or so.

edit: I wasn't listing shows I like myself. Sports aren't my thing either, but watching an old game is objectively much different from watching it as it's happening.
 
kju1 said:
Honestly I don't know why people bother with broadcast/cable tv anymore. There isn't much on it except things to fill time with. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video all have better content and you don't have to sit around waiting until a specified time.

Content aside that's actually the most important part for me. I have a very busy life and its far more convenient for me to watch something when I want to not when some arbitrary scheduler decides to slip it into the lineup.
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That's what a dvr like Tivo is for. I've used one since the single tuner SD directivo back in the day through now. I also have streaming services but not everything shows up or stays around for more than a week in many cases for TV shows. The Tivo let's me watch shows on my schedule purely. And I skip ads.
 
GoldenTiger said:
That's what a dvr like Tivo is for. I've used one since the single tuner SD directivo back in the day through now. I also have streaming services but not everything shows up or stays around for more than a week in many cases for TV shows. The Tivo let's me watch shows on my schedule purely. And I skip ads.
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Tivo record in HD?
 
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