Cord cutting

Scrabo

Scrabo

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Scrabo
Thinking of cord cutting, what alternatives did you go with?

Sling seems to advertise a lot, which always concerns me
 
I actually like box cutters but a good sharp knife will do.
 
Det cord.....will cut an entire cord of fire in a single shot....



As to tv and phone, we just have a couple of web based services and ooma for the phone.
 
We live in a rural area and had Directv satellite for years. The local telephone cooperative recently wired up our area with fiber and we now stream. We stayed with Directv using their streaming service that basically mirrors the previous satellite service and saved a few bucks. I like Directv for the regional sports [Atlanta Braves fan] . Another savings is that we can use the one streaming account at both our residence and vacation home. Cost is around $100/month.
 
Nothing is perfect and I think cable still has the largest overall selection in one place. OTOH, you can take streaming with you when you travel domestically.

It really depends on your viewing habits and willingness to pay for extras. You really need to see the lineup for the ones you are thinking of. And be willing to be flexible.

We've been with YouTubeTV for about 3 years now, except for one year we switched to Fubo for 2 months during tennis season. We have been pleased with its selection and quality.
 
I like NFL but my wife LOVES to watch any NFL game.
I LOVE watching college football and my wife likes to watch college football.
Other than that, we watch a few movies, usually on Friday or Saturday night.
And during Hurricane season (being in Florida) we watch a lot of the weather channel. And some news.

We finally settled on good outdoor antenna (around $250 one time), Netflix and Amazon. And during Hurricane season, Frndly carries the weather channel for about $6 or 7 per month. We are very happy with this mix.

In the past if we wanted to watch a particular game we would have to sign up for a streaming package that was carrying it. Then the next game would be on a different streaming package and then the next game . . . We finally ran out of free trials.

The antenna lets us pick up almost all of them locally televised games on ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX. And it gets all the local news stations and includes things like Presidential debates and Congressional hearings and such. Plus if we just want to watch some mindless entertainment, it is free and very good quality. Just have to tolerate the commercials, like in the old days. Most of the stations we pick up are between 50 and 70 miles away and it works well, and is free once the initial cost is done.

I wish we did it years ago. It has saved us tons of $$$ and frustrations trying to find out how to watch what we want. We make a few sacrifices in selection, but not enough to matter. Netflix and Amazon have enough of a selection that we can always eventually find something we both like, but that is the hardest part.
 
We got rid of cable and also did not replace it with an overall service like Sling or YouTube TV. We got Paramount+ which is basically CBS, Peacock for NBC, Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime (which we had anyways). All in is about $60/month. The only thing I was not able to get was the College Football Championships on ESPN. I'm not a big major league sports guy, but could get the Superbowl, Masters, Tour de France and World Cup pretty easily. Haven't missed cable at all.
 
Hang 4 said:
We got rid of cable and also did not replace it with an overall service like Sling or YouTube TV. We got Paramount+ which is basically CBS, Peacock for NBC, Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime (which we had anyways). All in is about $60/month. The only thing I was not able to get was the College Football Championships on ESPN. I'm not a big major league sports guy, but could get the Superbowl, Masters, Tour de France and World Cup pretty easily. Haven't missed cable at all.
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You also get Thursday Night Football on Amazon (at least for now).
 
YouTube TV lets you suspend service for 6 months so i turn it off when football ends and on when it starts.

Saves a ton of money, though they keep adding channels and raising rates. It was perfect at $35 a month. With 70-90 channels I’ve never watched it’s $65 now. Unlimited dvr

Years ago I had sling because of the tiers, then they split sports so you had to get both tiers. Very annoying.
 
We also switched to YouTube TV several years ago after trying Hulu (the one with all the channels and no ads). What I like about streaming is I don’t have to pay per-TV for a cable/satellite box. We have something like 8 TVs in our home and 3 in our condo, and it’s the same base price with no upcharges. Now we can only have 3 live streams at any one time, but that’s rarely an issue (it does happen as our kids also share the subscription.). I also like the unlimited DVR. Stuff gets deleted after some period of time, but that’s never been an issue. I recorded every World Cup Game, and then watched the ones I wanted at a reasonable hour.

We have been with Verizon forever, and one of their unlimited plans that we have on one line includes Disney+, ESPN+, and basic Hulu.
 
I haven’t had cable my entire adult life and have never missed it. We currently pay for Netflix and MotorTrend on Demand. That’s been a good combination for us and way cheaper than any cable plan.

Nice thing for us is it works anywhere there’s internet (especially nice on RV trips) and with Netflix I can download episodes before a long flight.
 
Cord cutting ain't what it used to be, unfortunately. The media conglomerates have caught on and their legal teams have been navigating streaming ownership rights to shows and channels a lot more stringently (or greedily) it seems.

We got rid of cable about 12 years ago when we were appalled to be paying over $100/mo for standard stuff. At first we had a OTA HD antenna and it worked pretty darn well. We were getting channels we didn't even know existed with better picture quality than we had with cable. Then we moved and now have a wall of pine trees between us and the 'city', so the OTA antenna became useless. We then went with SlingTV - it was $20/mo (not just an intro rate) and gave us everything we wanted (including ESPN channels, SEC Network, and Fox Sports regional feeds). Then Fox Sports was bought out by Bally and they decided they wanted a bigger piece of the streaming pie so SlingTV lost the Fox regional sports channels, which meant we lost the Braves (which is pretty much all we watch during baseball season). We eventually dropped SlingTV and went to something else (maybe ?Hulu w/ Live TV?). But over the past ~5 years, it's been a constant turnover of streaming services losing subsets of channels as more media conglomerates decide to start their own streaming service (a la Paramount+ that was mentioned earlier) and we find ourselves chasing the channels that we actually want to watch. Right now, I think we have DirecTV streaming (mostly for baseball in the summer and college football in the fall), Amazon (included with AMZ), HBO (through an AmEx deal), Disney+ through a Verizon deal, AppleTV (not gonna lie - just for Ted Lasso, though I've flagged a few movies I want to watch there before we cancel), and Youtube Premium (I have grown to despise commericals) for the various YT channels that we subscribe to (yes, 6PC is included in that list). If I were to add it up (which I don't want to, but probably should do), I'm sure we're collectively paying well over the $100/mo that we were appalled by 12 years ago.

Best suggestion I can give is to figure out what you want to watch for the next 6-12 months and find the streaming service with the best intro deal to meet those needs and be fully prepared to jump ship when the intro deal runs out or the channels that you want get cut from your lineup. There is no such thing as 'best of breed' in streaming services anymore.
 
Entertaining video podcast on this topic, appropriately titled “CordKillers”. Available via YouTube.

We cut the cord about 4 years ago. AppleTV boxes at each TV in both homes - 4 in total. Currently pay for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Paramount+, Apple TV+, Disney+ and recently HBO Max. We also pay about $20/month via Patreon for podcasts we enjoy, including CordKillers. It all adds up, but still comes in less than we were paying for DishNetwork at our GA home.

At our TN home we currently use StarLink for internet, as it’s the only viable option for now. We are close enough to Knoxville to get solid OTA signal for local and network programming.

I’m short, we’re never without something to watch - there’s almost too much from which to choose!
 
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JOhnH said:
...Just have to tolerate the commercials, like in the old days...
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If you're technical, you can setup a free MythTV server. It supports automatic commercial skip. It works well most of the time. Sometimes it skips more than a normal commercial break in which case you just rewind.
 
Somewhat technical but less so than Myth TV: Over the air antenna -> HD Homerun -> Plex with Lifetime Pass on an old computer with a big hard drive. This gets you all the locals with a DVR you can watch anywhere in the world. Then subscribe and cancel across the other streaming services every few months to fill in the gaps.
 
We have Amazon Fire TV sticks and subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Prime, and Paramount+. The nice thing is that if there's a show you want to watch on a service you don't subscribe to, you can just get it for a month. And you can subscribe to a bunch before it approaches the cost of a cable bill. We have an Amazon Fire Replay that gives us live TV with DVR.
 
YouTube TV, Netflix, Paramount+ until the series we watch go on break then we’ll drop it. That’s what I like best about streaming - no loyalty and ZERO penalty for stopping and starting. I’ll subscribe to Hulu or Stars or whatever when there’s something we want to watch. When that series is done and it’s going to be six months or two years until the next season… drop it and pick it up later on.
 
DaleB said:
YouTube TV, Netflix, Paramount+ until the series we watch go on break then we’ll drop it. That’s what I like best about streaming - no loyalty and ZERO penalty for stopping and starting.
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One thing advocated on CordKillers is to periodically cancel ALL your subscriptions, then add them back in one at a time as you need to for the content you desire. Weeds out the ones you rarely use yet are still paying for. Never done it, but sounds like a reasonable plan.

Let me add to my post above that we occasionally pay for a movie online, typically @ $3.99 or so, usually just once or twice a month at most.
 
FastEddieB said:
One thing advocated on CordKillers is to periodically cancel ALL your subscriptions, then add them back in one at a time as you need to for the content you desire. Weeds out the ones you rarely use yet are still paying for. Never done it, but sounds like a reasonable plan.
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I like that idea. I used to do that with my home PC - reformat and reinstall as needed to remove the background trash. I've been seeing more and more commercials for 'apps' that will monitor and help cancel subscriptions - you know it's a growing issue when it gets prevalent enough that someone is willing to invest in and market a 'solution'. (Though I wouldn't use an app to clean things out)
 
Hulu + works for us. We're also in an area where we can get all the broadcast channels over-the-air, except NBC. Only downside is that Hulu doesn't carry the Arizona Diamondbacks or Phoenix Suns networks, or Pac12 Network. So far we've survived.
 
We have the following setup:
Bedroom TV on Roku and 4K Firestick in main living area
HDHomerun - over-the-air tuner for local channels but it is accessed with an app so there's a full programming schedule, also multiple tuners so that many tvs can watch different channels simultaneously
Amazon Prime (already have it due to Prime membership, but we don't watch much on it)
Triple package from Disney for Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu ($19.99/mo)
Netflix ($15/mo)

We had SlingTV for a year or two (Orange Package), but it was almost $30/mo and was replaced by the Disney package. It ended up being like cable/satellite with 80% of the channels we didn't care about.
 
When we got our Fiber Internet a bit over a year ago, I baked off the two week free trials for just about all of them.

The two leading ones for me were YouTubeTV and ATT/DirectV. The thing that killed DirectV for me at the time was they had no AndroidTV app and most of my TVs are android and I didn't want to unnecessarily add set top boxes to things. I've been pretty happy with YouTubeTV on the Android, the web/desktop version, and my AppleTVs.
 
About to dump cable TV and internet as I now have Starlik and only really watch 2 or 3 broadcast TV shows regularly...but have been a bit dismayed how fragmented the streaming services are and if you really want the equivalent to cable channel lineup you will probably be paying more in all the streaming fees vs just paying for cable!
 
YouTubeTV and Roku. We pay extra for Prime and we are using our daughter’s Netflix as long as they keep allowing it. We also changed internet providers for faster and cheaper. So we’re still saving significantly, as long as we don’t add more subscriptions.
 
DaleB said:
We have zero usable reception of any broadcast TV at our house. Analog signals were more or less OK. Digital is utterly useless. So, it’s all streaming for us.
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Taller antenna mast? :)
 
My local cable provider has recently come up with a mostly affordable plan that lets me have my Internet modem with no television service at all. Before, I was forced to have basic cable and a decoder box.

I have not watched broadcast TV in 15+ years and seldom consume anything other than streaming services. I wish I could de-Google all my devices, but I am stuck with YouTube until all the "creators" move on to other platforms...

There is Gigabyte ethernet here, but I only pay for 400+ Mbps. That's more than enough for compressed video.
 
Ive just gone back to sailing the 7 seas. I didnt mind when it was netflix and hulu for tv now everyones peeled off into their own little bubble. I have prime for the shipping and a discount netflix account through work. Other than that its sailing the high seas.
 
falconkidding said:
Ive just gone back to sailing the 7 seas. I didnt mind when it was netflix and hulu for tv now everyones peeled off into their own little bubble. I have prime for the shipping and a discount netflix account through work. Other than that its sailing the high seas.
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We were cruising in Venezuela when 9/11 happened. We tuned in a local TV station showing live reports on the TV, since it was in spanish we could not understand most of it. Powered up the SSB and found a station where the voice was very close to the TV in timing, VOA or BBC I think.
 
falconkidding said:
Ive just gone back to sailing the 7 seas. I didnt mind when it was netflix and hulu for tv now everyones peeled off into their own little bubble. I have prime for the shipping and a discount netflix account through work. Other than that its sailing the high seas.
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NZB.
 
We had Sling, got tired of it. He have Netflix, don't think we'll ever get tired of that. Got HBO, watched it for awhile, but got burned out. Got Disney, rinse and repeat (actually, they kicked me off for reasons that are still mysterious). Might try Paramount, they have Star Trek Shows. I could see us cycling through these things to keep it fresh.
 
We found that YouTubeTV had almost every one of the channels we used to have with our cable provider. All except one or two that had exclusive contracts, like the one that broadcasts the KC Royals. So we can't get their games on TV anymore. Other than that, I still get ESPN, and I get some other sports channels that I didn't have before.

It also allows for 4(?) guest accounts, so our kids have access to it. And they can set their location to where they live and get their own local channels.

Unlimited DVR (cloud) space, too, but I think there's an expiration date where recorded shows are deleted.
 
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