Sometime in the early 80s, my family made the transition from so-called wireless television (rabbit ears and rooftop antennas) to “wired” reception, via the cable company. I believe the local provider was named TKR, at least for awhile, down at the Jersey shore, and we used this nifty cable box, which was amusingly, wired to the TV. We had 36 channels, tops.
Over time, TKR became someone else, and I moved a few times, going from Cablevision to Comcast to DirecTV back to Comcast then back to Cablevision, then to Verizon’s FiOS, then back to Comcast after moving across the country to Seattle. Those experiences had some highs and lows, but one thing was consistent – paying for the television we watched, as well as what we didn’t. You begin to figure out what “works” and what doesn’t, from provider to provider.
Sometimes you’re getting what seems like a good deal when it comes to all-in-one services, such as phone, cable and Internet, and sometimes it gets to be a bit much. Is there a value in paying for a wide swath of television? Sure. Are we finally at the point where someone with a little bit of knowhow can find a “better” way to experience what they want while still providing compensation back to content creators? Absolutely.
And with that, I’m happy to announce that we’ve “cut the cord” when it comes to paying (indirectly, at least) for television.
Wired to wireless
As of this week, I’ve canceled our Comcast account, having recently ported our telephone number to Clear, and am back to the days of “wireless” television reception. We’d had both services for a few months, just to make sure it was “doable,” and finally made a move. Now, don’t get me wrong – it’s “different” than what we had before. We don’t have 24-hour cable news access. I don’t have SportsCenter on at any time I want it. The two digital antennas that are set up on the TVs in the living room and bedroom do a pretty good job with pulling in the digital signals here in downtown Seattle – though they have their choppiness every so often, so it’s still needing some fine tuning, for lack of a better word. But it feels kind of refreshing.
Here’s the breakdown. We were paying just over $200 a month for cable television, our phone line, and our Internet. The only real “premium” channel we purchased was HBO, for things like “Big Love” and “Entourage.” $200 a month is a whole lot of money, and I can’t say I was really getting the most out of the “television” portion of the bill. Additionally, as we moved to Seattle just six months ago, I felt that having a little less draw to the TV on its terms, rather than ours, would be a good thing. Do we totally veg out a number of nights a week and watch shows? Absolutely. Are we beholden to any REAL scheduling? Not really.
Sure, I’ve had DVRs and TiVos off and on for years now, but there are still things that you watch when they’re on, just because. However, I’ve found that, after having moved to the left coast, my super-connectedness via things like Twitter and Facebook make it really tough to not hear ANYTHING about what’s on, and many of my friends and colleagues are watching / talking about things hours before they even air here. I’m sure that’s not the same for everyone living in the Western U.S., but it is for me.
Time-shifting as an aside, I was really struck by the math once I started to look at what things cost, and started comparing it to how we digest things at home here of late.
You don’t always watch what you pay for
When in one of the local shopping malls, I saw that I could purchase Clear’s wireless service and add phone service for $55/month. Forever. My head calculates that there was almost $150 left that I’d previously been paying just for television, when you break it down. Now sure, it’s not a perfect calculation as my Comcast service was a bit faster on the download and the upload, but I’ve noticed no letdown from a streaming perspective on Clear. Additionally, my VoIP phone service is at the same level of quality.
So, taking it one step further, I started looking at what kinds of things I could purchase via on demand via Amazon, what shows and movies were available to stream via Netflix, which we are already paying $18/month for (making our REAL total about $220/month), and so on.
“Can I still watch all my shows?
Once I started adding up the per-episode costs at $1.99 a pop or thereabouts, or “season” subscriptions for the shows that were on the premium TV services (cable, fiber, satellite), I realized that our all-in spend would probably be more like $100-$115/month – and that’s if we PAID for everything we wanted to watch and had it automagically downloaded to the web-connected TiVos in the bedroom and living room. So things like USA’s “Burn Notice” or AMC’s “Breaking Bad” could shift to “on-demand” shows that we purchased or streamed on computers, and shows like “American Idol,” “24″ or “Lost,” to name a few, would be recorded over-the-air and watched on a whim. Interested in getting into a new show? Request it at night from Amazon – on my TV screen – and have it ready soon after.
Is the “on demand” model the same as the instantaneous nature of the cable on-demand? Not quite. But I will say that I watched about five seasons of Showtime’s awesome “Weeds” via Netflix streaming, and had no issues using the phone or Internet in the background, in great quality on my 50″ plasma.
So that’s where we are now. I haven’t even re-hooked up the Mac mini we purchased expressly for this purpose and to view our photos and videos on TV, or to play music over our home audio equipment yet. Just wait until Boxee hardware shows up.
Again, it’s not a perfect solution, but I can honestly say that we’ve “cut the cord” from television, and are still “paying” customers of television programming. We’re just not paying a third party for everything we’re not watching. So while the NYT’s Brian Stelter might be spot on about how more and more Americans continue to pay monthly fees for their television, perhaps there’ll be a day soon where Americans are simply paying for television programming, rather than the conduit for a seemingly endless supply of television they may never get to, or even realize they are “getting.”
To sum it up, I’d say that if you’re one of those people who gets most of the news, sports and weather from the web or Internet-connected devices, this is an interesting proposition. If you’re not the one who isn’t into taking an extra step or two, or waiting ten minutes for something, then maybe we’re not there yet. But we’re close, in my opinion.