Cutting the Cable...

Recently, JMD and I were discussing our cable bill: it is ~$120/month for internet & cable TV (basic package; no premium channels). Yuck. I had previously assumed that JMD wanted cable TV (since she signed us up for it), but she actually remarked that she didn't want it anymore--especially because they were about to jack rates an additional $10/month. So the cable box got disconnected, and [gulp] all of it was returned to the company. I believe that our rates are going to go down by ~$40/month (internet only).


Those of you who know me probably are aware of this, but my television watching is pretty minimal. Maybe 75% PBS, 20% Discovery Channel, with a smattering of other things (the odd hockey game, TLC, History Channel). Also, DVDs, NetFlix/Amazon on demand, iTunes movies, or downloaded video files (via my hacked together media station). So I didn't think of it as that much of a loss.

My plan was to grab an antenna, in order to tune in boring, old, over-the-airwaves digital TV. However, I thought, "Huh... I could just plug the cable into the back of the TV and see if it picks up anything..." Well...


Schweet! With a built-in digital tuner, it picked up the unscrambled on-air channels from the cable no problem--including all the on-air HD channels. No idea if this is going away in a month or not--but it seems like it might be more of a pain than it is worth for the cable company to shut off over-the-air channels on their existing infrastructure. And if they do... well, oh noes, back to the plan of installing an antenna.

But I quickly realized: all that I really had lost (in my TV selection) was Discovery Channel. So wait...we were paying an extra $40 a month just for Discovery Channel? As well as whatever JMD was watching (TNT? the Law and Order channel?) Not to mention the privilege of not getting HDTV?! (the cable company was going to charge extra for an HDTV cable box). Dammit! That would have been a nice dinner every month for how many years now?!?

The New York Times actually had an article talking about the phenomenon of "cable cutters"--Changing Channels, From Cable to the Web:

...people who do watch television — sometimes plenty of it — but don’t own a cable box.

Those who belong to this crowd are only too happy to remind you that they can watch most of what you watch, but don’t pay $60 a month or more for the privilege. They will explain gleefully how they (legally, for the most part) circumvent the cable companies. And they are becoming more voluble, as cable bills rise and technology improves.

...

It’s impossible to quantify how many people have ditched their cable service, and the cable providers are eager to paint them as a minority fringe. But with devices like Xbox and Apple TV and software like Boxee making it easy to stream Internet content to a television, mention the phenomenon in just about any gathering, and someone is likely to pipe up about his or her way of watching cable free. And, yes, by and large they do enjoy making other people jealous.

However, it is only seen as a fringe element... although given how various internet appliances are making entertainment convergence that much easier for the masses, this might not be a fringe trend forever:

Cable executives say they are not worried. Setting up a cable-free life is still too daunting for most people, since most of the work-arounds involve a lot more than just grabbing the remote (assuming you can find it under the sofa cushions).

“We don’t consider it a threat to our business,” said Maureen Huff, a spokeswoman for Time Warner Cable. “Being able to watch TV on the Internet is not new.”

Without question, the cost of watching television is going up: The average household cable bill in the United States hit $64 a month in 2009, up from $47.50 in 2004, according to Leichtman Research Group, which specializes in media research.

Even so, most cord cutters are “really just a bizarre breed of people, usually in New York or San Francisco, who don’t watch a lot of television in the first place,” said Bruce Leichtman, the president of the New Hampshire-based group.

I am betting that my audience here probably overrepresents folks who don't bother with cable TV. Anyway, while we're on the topic of television, I had to mention this Atlantic Monthly article ("The Future is Cheese"). It had a choice quote from the creator of the TV show Heroes, which made me laugh out loud:

Speaking at a screenwriter expo in Los Angeles, Tim Kring struggled to defend his sci-fi-tinged show, which has endured two seasons of faltering ratings. Heroes is presented in a serialized format, meaning that stories “arc” over the course of an entire season rather than conclude at the end of each episode, as in a sitcom, or a police procedural such as CSI or Law & Order. The serialized format is “a very flawed way of telling stories on network television right now,” a blogger quoted Kring as saying, “because of the advent of the DVR and online streaming. The engine that drove [serialized TV] was, you had to be in front of the TV [when it aired]. Now you can watch it when you want, where you want, how you want to watch it, and almost all of those ways are superior to watching it on-air.”

Then, in a fit of pique for which he is still apologizing, he said: “So on-air is [relegated] to the saps and the dipshits who can’t figure out how to watch it in a superior way.”

Saps and dipshits indeed. Yeah, I feel a bit of pity for folks who don't realize that there are options. Okay, not that much.