I Never Jacked In

I’ve never, ever, directly paid to watch television.  No cable, no satellite, just a lowly antenna for me, and it appears that other individuals are “cutting the cord,” and more importantly, the one hundred dollar, plus, monthly bill which comes with the cord.

...Nearly 800,000 households in the U.S. have “cut the cord,” dumping their cable, satellite, or telco TV providers (such as AT&T U-verse or Verizon FiOS) and turning instead to Web-based videos (like Hulu), downloadable shows (iTunes), by-mail subscription services (Netflix), or even good ol’ over-the-air antennas for their favorite shows, according to the report.

Now, as TechCrunch points out, the estimated 800,000 cord cutters represent less than 1 percent of the 100 million U.S. households (give or take) currently subscribing to a cable/satellite/telco TV carrier, so it’s not like we’re talking a mass exodus here. But by the end of 2011, the report guesstimates, the number of cord-cutting households in the U.S. will double to about 1.6 million, and if the trend continues, well…

Personally, I find the temptation to cut the cord pretty enticing, especially whenever I get a load of my monthly $130 cable bill (which includes unlimited broadband and HD but no premium channels). Why am I paying so much for all the hundreds of channels that I rarely ever watch, anyway? Wouldn’t it be easier — not to mention a lot cheaper — just to ditch my DVR and watch my favorite shows on iTunes and Hulu, catch up on the news via CNN.com, and be done with it?

How about you?  Are you feeling tempted to cut the cord?

Nearly 800,000 U.S. TV households ‘cut the cord,’ report says

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/14 at 10:37 AM

  1. I guess we’re semi-cut; we’ve got the cheapest-possible cable plan, mostly for the wife,  though we do have an antenna we could use. Don’t even get Fox News. And worse, though our cable and phone companies both provide DSL, they can’t/won’t provide DSL TO US.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  04/14  at  12:08 PM

  2. Jeffrey, what’s the deal with neither company providing DSL?  I have to have an AT&T landline (for the lovely Melis’ daily telecommute) in order to get DSL, but my provider, Triton, is a separate entity.  Any separate entity providers in your neck of the woods?

    Posted by John Venlet  on  04/14  at  01:09 PM

  3. Cut the cable 5 years ago, & not even the teenager misses it. We get Netflix on the game consoles piped to the t-wees, and news (or whatever) from the intertubes. The 6 yr old recently learned about commercials from a neighbor, and thought his t-wee was broken.
    On another note, John, the flag is your property; that’s all.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  04/14  at  08:11 PM

  4. Apparently, nobody has built out the infrastructure to our road. As far as I can tell, it ends about half a mile away in either direction. Note that I live on a street with 100-150 ft frontage, level terrain…it’s not like I’m on some mountaintop with the nearest neighbor 5 miles away. I went back and forth with all vendors listed at whitefence, and the only options were satellite or 3G, so we went with Sprint. It’s better than dialup, but often not very fast, and the 5G/mo bandwidth between 2 people means that we don’t do a lot of AV (though at least now it’s practical for the wife to watch you-tubes). It’s added to the deep attitude I have about Verizon. What makes it worse is that we continue to be bombarded with mass-mailing offers…which somehow get recinded when I pick up the phone. We are the “fine print people”

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  04/16  at  08:52 AM

  5. We are the “fine print people”

    Attention to the details is vital, I think.

    Posted by John Venlet  on  04/16  at  01:04 PM

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