Alternatives to Having Cable

My wife and I started watching Lost after it was recommended to us by several friends.  It’s one of those shows that really sucks you in – very addictive.  We primarily watched the show through Blockbuster’s online service – we’d get the DVDs one at a time and watch them.   By the time we got finished, the show was in the midst of its current season.  We couldn’t watch the current episodes anymore, because abc.com only has the five most recent episodes available.  The most current episode available at the time was episode 3 of season 5.  We decided we’d wait until the end of the season and just watch all the episode back to back, the way we’ve been doing it all along.  We waited a few weeks, and then our withdrawals kicked in and we decided we couldn’t wait to watch the show.

Of course, by this time, epidsode 7 was the most recent episode available at abc.com.  At the end of the season, I believe all the episodes will be available at abc.  We didn’t want to wait that long.  We broke down and bought the first three episodes on itunes for $2.99 each (I know, not the most frugal move).  They weren’t available on Hulu.com, which just directed us to abc’s site.  They weren’t available anywhere else we looked either.  We ended up skipping episodes 4-6 and just got caught up on abc.com last weekend.  Desperate times call for…you know.  We watched the episode shorts on abc and read the summaries, and we’ll probably rent the season when the time comes.  My wife and I both recognize how ridiculous the measures we went to watch this tv show were/are.  We’re dealing with that;)

I guess the point is, because of the prominence of the internet, and the ease and low cost of renting lots of movies, many people are questioning whether cable is really necessary anymore.  I think that’s a valid question.  The decision not to pay for cable is one that should be re-examined by every American family with the prominence of the internet. 

First, we’ll consider the cost of cable.  We get our cable and internet in a package that cost around $115/month.  You can get this much cheaper during an introductory rate.  This is one area of our finances that we’ve consistently neglected.  We just pay the rate every month like good little sheep, when we should have instead been constantly challenging the company and exploring our options.  It’s something we’ve vowed to do a better job at once we move and potentially enter into a new plan – if we opt for cable at all.  Our bill is itemized, and it indicates that we would be paying around $45/month for internet alone – obviously a $70 difference/month.  So, if we ignore other factors, if we can watch the television shows we’re interested in for less than $70/month, there’s no reason for us to have cable.  These numbers are going to be different based on where you live, who your provider is and what cable package you have.  I had some trouble pulling prices off of Time Warner online – which has to be one of the worst run businesses in America. 

There are multiple places to find tv shows online, one of the most well known and prominent being Hulu.com.  Hulu doesn’t cost you a thing, they make all of their money off of advertising.  Like any online show, the advertising is brief and less invasive than the overt advertising provided on cable networks.  I just got done watching an episode of Arrested Development on Hulu, to make sure this is the case (AD is an incredibly funny show if your humor runs that way).  Of course, you can get a lot of the shows directly from the networks as well.  If you want to watch current episodes of current shows, this is probably the way to do it.  I don’t know how long this will last in its current state.  The acting community is pretty upset about not getting a share of the revenue generated by the shows that they’ve been in that are now featured online.  Tina Fey alluded to this when she was recently accepting an award for her work on 30 Rock.  What other sources out there do people use to watch shows online?

Of course, you might want to couple your banishment of cable in favor of watching online tv shows with a subscription to one of the two online movie rental services, Netflix or Blockbuster.  Or you might supplement your movie watching with Redbox, which seems to be increasing in popularity.  I plan on doing a comparison of the rates from these three sources of movie rentals later in the week.  This is really moot in terms of this analysis for me personally, because we currently have both a cable package and a subscription to blockbuster online. 

If you decide to stick with cable after reading this, JD @ Get Rich Slowly has an excellent review of White Fence, a site that is supposed to help you find deals on utilities, phone, internet, television, natural gas and other home services. Be aware that a couple of JDs readers in the comments accused White Fence of being a vehicle serving the needs and desires of AT&T and other private companies. I don’t know. I’m definitely going to check out the resources there sometime before we make our move.

Though you would no doubt save money, there are some other considerations on deciding whether to start satisfying your tv fix with online television.  One is the size of your family.  If you watch certain things together consistently, you may not be able to crowd around the computer the same way you do with the television.  Of course, if what you usually watch together is movies, this still wouldn’t be a problem.  Another consideration would be the online accessibility of the things you like.  If you’re a big sports fan, you’re not going to get the same amount of games without cable.  There are online alternatives, such as MLB.tv, but this costs money as well.  Another thing you might consider is the ability to get introductory rates on cable/internet combinations.  It often isn’t much more expensive under the introductory rate to just go ahead and get both together. 

Something else you might consider with regard to going without cable is how much more productive you’ll have the opportunity to be.  It’s so easy to sit in front of the tv and do virtually nothing (that’s what Lost does to us).  Some of that convenience is mitigated by the online tv shows.  They’re there if you want them, but they’re there at your convenience, whenever you want to watch them.  You aren’t locking yourself in to a Tuesday night (or whatever) ritual that you and your family partake in.  If you instead use this time to connect with your family, take a class or read a book, you might feel like you’re living a more productive life.  If you have other suggestions on this issue please email me or leave them in the comments.  Thanks for reading.

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