The Brain (no TV)

[prog]

I'm thinking about ditching my cable TV again.

I'm not sure it's worth ~$60 for the convenience of a massive amount of programming firehosed at me when I watch far less than one percent of it. This becomes even more true when you consider that that I which I do watch I can get over the Internet, dump on my iPod, and then watch on my TV set.

In some cases, I can even get the shows through whiter-than-gray channels like iTunes, negating any guilt about dropping out of the Nielsen game. (They'd cost two bucks a pop then, but I don't watch 30 episodes of anything in any month.)

Any counter-arguments?

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I also have a consumer-political agenda here, since I'd like to become more active in agitating for the death of schedule-based broadcast television as the dominant medium for quality video content, be it fiction or anything else. (Though I'll be the first to admit that it's the surge in damn good SF shows over the last couple years that's driving me here. And the heartbreak and stress at knowing that they're trapped and suffering in a delivery/business model which they can and should outgrow.)

(And yes the entrepreneur in me is adding his voice to this. Just as a hobby, mind you.)

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

given your situation, it seems like ditching cable is a win-win for you. you can also get a helluva netflix subscription for that monthly price.

[kyroraz.livejournal.com]

I'd totally ditch cable, it's usually not worth much.

I can't give it up due to my Weather Channel Crack habit and Adult Swim. YMMV.

[prog.livejournal.com]

In my Waterville days I was able to flip between the History Channel, Sci Fi Channel, and Comedy Central and just let it whatever was on wash over me while I worked at the computer. But that's no longer the case.

[jtroutman.livejournal.com]

I have not had cable TV since 1998 or so. Just the 4 basic channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, and public TV)

When I travel, and stay in a hotel room, I am both frightened and enthralled by the programming on all of the channels. I usually stay up way too late, watching 3 or 4 shows at the same time, for hours and hours. it is horrible.

if I had cable TV, i would probably watch 30 hours a week of TV, drooling the whole time.

DVD boxed sets are available for the things I must watch, and I have purchased a few episodes on iTunes. I have also said for years that "the Internet is my TiVo". Bittorrent and years of having multi-megabit connectivity have spoiled me.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I have hundreds of channels and I don't watch any of them. I don't know which situation is worse.

I feel like a fool for dumping thousands of dollars into this over the years. Sigh. Well, it can end here.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

We have no broadcast television at all. I get my news from NPR and the internet, and I just finished watching episode 16 of the 2nd season of Lost. (I watched way too much TV in college, didn't get one when I graduated in 1995, and haven't looked back.)

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, cable is barely watchable, there's so much advertising. And $60/mo is pretty much a season's worth of DVDs of whatever you like, per month.

[shibusashirazu.livejournal.com]

I think cable increasingly is only going to make sense in a few niche ways -- and you can see that by the way it is promoted. A lot of advertising for cable and the HD/DVR features are directed at those who watch sports. Basically if you are into programming that holds most of its value as being "live," then paying for cable/satellite makes more sense.

Also, I took at the iTunes store -- because I never really looked at it for TV before and you can get a lot of pretty good deals for subscriptions of shows. I figured you get 6 weeks of the Daily Show for about $20. So if you're interested in series, it'd be even cheaper than $2/ep. That may not be news, but I thought it was interesting.