We joined the modern age and canceled our TV Dish. Dish had gotten so expensive that it was no longer of value. We bought a new LG tv this past winter and it has 1000 channels on it for free, many of the same ones Dish charges for. We also bought an over the air antenna that brings in 56 channels including our local channels. I was reading Dish is losing 12% of their customers annually and Direct TV is right behind them. I believe though DirectTv bought Djsh. 157 dollars a month doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that's almost 2 grand a year for only a few channels you actually watch and it was a real kick in the pants to find out you can get those few channels you watch for free.
We’ll We Did It
- Thread starter KenB259
- Start date
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McKenzie Penworks
Member
If you're relatively close to bigger cities the HD Antenna is tough to be for the regular channels for sure. Unfortunately these days streaming is getting to the point where everyone wants their own separate streaming channel so it might already be cheaper to have Cable/DirectTV than to get all the various streaming services. The whole appeal to them was lack of commercials, etc and now they all have commercials.
Woodchipper
Member
1,000 channels? I only look at maybe 24 at the most. I don't watch local channels on TV but get news from one station online. So my cable system is a waste of money. If there isn't anything worth watching, I have over 500 books.
Yes 1000" channels, it's crazy. When we originally got DISH, smart tvs weren't really an affordable option yet, so we got DISH, it started out at about 60 a month and was a little cheaper than the cable tv we had. They are pricing themselves into oblivion.
Yeah I'm nit falling into the subscription trap. Most of the time our tv is background noise. I think we'll be happy without DISH.
Ya, when we bought our house here in E.Tx. about 2 1/2 yrs ago, we bought a samsung tv. Has tons of channels on it. We're in the country, so no wifi. But we have phone hotspots. The wife had amazon prime, which saves her a ton of shipping costs for her quilting, and netflix. I have Peacock with my verizon and I pay for paramount +. Our antenna picks up 24 channels from Shreveport, La. No need for cable or dishes. They finally brought fiber optics to our rural area about 7 months ago so now we do have wifi. So I guess for about $35, we get all we need. Besides $50 for our wifi which I definitely would have subscribed to anyway.
GaryMGg
Member
A Roku device is a one-time purchase—about $35–and has lots of apps with no charge. Many of those have commercials but so does OTA TV.
moke
Member
Direct TV is loosing a ton of "dish" customers every month but they are actually growing because of their streaming service.....which I have and am a fan of. $100 per month with the sports package, about 150.00 cheaper than cable...
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Smokey S
Member
We cut the cable somewhere close to 15 years ago. We have Roku, Netflix and Appletv. We put an over the air antenna up 20'. Happy we did, just saying!………Smokey
Ted iin Michigan
Member
Ken - We're east of Lansing a bit and get very little in the way of "local" stations plus no access to cable. Have had Dish for a long time but are contemplating walking away. Are you in the Detroit area? 56 stations seems like a lot. We have an older DSL internet service thru the local phone co which (barely) gets us by.
Living in the sticks is great - until you need the 21st century goodies.
Living in the sticks is great - until you need the 21st century goodies.
We're just west of Lansing. 8 miles from Grand Ledge. I was surprised on the amount of over the air channels we get. We just bought a small flat antenna at Mennards for around 25 dollars and it works great.
rixstix
Member
Pluto has been good as a freebie for us. We stream oldies but goodies (to us). Over the air is sparce pickings here.
We like Pluto too and Tubi, lots of stuff on there.
moke
Member
I really like documentaries ad some old movies....Plex along with Tubi and Pluto is just kinda fun and the price is right!
I never actually had cable or satellite TV, and hearing what people pay these days for their TV packages I'm glad I never got plugged into that. From what my neighbors tell me its about $200/mo or more. Over two grand a year for TV, that you don't even really have any control over!?!?
I signed up for Netflix I think within its first couple of years of operation for the DVD mail program, had them when they introduced streaming in 2007, and I've had them ever since. I eventually added Hulu, and just kind of slid into Prime Video when it became available because I've had prime for so many years for the free shipping. I think I spend around $90/mo, and I have access to....well, just about everything. I am lacking Disney+ and Apple TV for major content providers. The former I don't really care much about, Apple TV I had for a while then canceled, and now its another "streamer" that you can purchase within Prime Video, which I may do at some point (there are a few Apple shows I have watched, such as Silo (brilliant!) and Foundation (epically epic scifi), and Apple is more careful about what shows they produce, how they produce them, and they give them a better chance in the long run...compared to Netflix which seems to greenlight and cancel shows on a year by year basis.)
Since I started with streaming early on, the whole notion of having to be on someone else's schedule to watch something has always seemed...well, ridiculous to me.
I mean, I grew up as a kid on OTA TV and scheduled shows, but we were not big TV watchers and we basically watched star trek and home improvement and such, just a few shows, and only on certain nights. My wind-down in the evenings is to watch a couple streaming shows...has been for, heck, 20 years. I've never spent the exorbitant amount of money on cable fees or sat TV...it always blew me away, when I heard people were spending $140-180/mo on cable back in the day when Netflix first introduced their streaming options for like $8/mo.
Costs have increased these days, but they are still a lot lower than cable or satellite as far as I understand. I think I pay around $28/mo for Netflix now, less than that for Prime itself (a bit extra for a couple of other prime streamers like Max plus their ad-removal option, so maybe $20/mo), and about $18/mo for Hulu ad-free. In all I think it sums up to about $90/mo...for complete and total freedom to watch whatever I choose whenever I choose, and I basically have access to 90% of shows, movies, etc. that are available on streaming.
Even if you don't want to pay for streaming, tvs like my LG, or Samsung, etc. offer "apps" now. They are kind of like smart phones, with app stores and apps for everything related to TV entertainment and beyond even. Lot of streaming services out there, including free ones. So you could check out Tubi, and they alone offer almost every video and show on streaming spanning a couple of decades now, for free...you have to watch ads, but its pretty light weight in terms of how much cable/sat TV still shows you ads! There are a few other apps now, that offer totally free streaming with ads, so you still don't actually have to pay any subscription fees at all, to have the freedom to watch anything at any time. With the options these days, there is so little reason to stick with cable or satellite TV. They lock you into huge packages of channels, equipment rental fees, DRM junk, poor quality (I've never seen cable or sat compare to the 4k UHD 10-bit HDR quality you get on modern streaming platforms), 90% of which you'll never use, to sustain their monthly income needs, when most of that kind of content can be found streaming for free....exception being maybe news and sports (although, with Prime and I think Hulu, you have the option to add those things as well for a small monthly fee if its something critical to you.)
I signed up for Netflix I think within its first couple of years of operation for the DVD mail program, had them when they introduced streaming in 2007, and I've had them ever since. I eventually added Hulu, and just kind of slid into Prime Video when it became available because I've had prime for so many years for the free shipping. I think I spend around $90/mo, and I have access to....well, just about everything. I am lacking Disney+ and Apple TV for major content providers. The former I don't really care much about, Apple TV I had for a while then canceled, and now its another "streamer" that you can purchase within Prime Video, which I may do at some point (there are a few Apple shows I have watched, such as Silo (brilliant!) and Foundation (epically epic scifi), and Apple is more careful about what shows they produce, how they produce them, and they give them a better chance in the long run...compared to Netflix which seems to greenlight and cancel shows on a year by year basis.)
Since I started with streaming early on, the whole notion of having to be on someone else's schedule to watch something has always seemed...well, ridiculous to me.
I mean, I grew up as a kid on OTA TV and scheduled shows, but we were not big TV watchers and we basically watched star trek and home improvement and such, just a few shows, and only on certain nights. My wind-down in the evenings is to watch a couple streaming shows...has been for, heck, 20 years. I've never spent the exorbitant amount of money on cable fees or sat TV...it always blew me away, when I heard people were spending $140-180/mo on cable back in the day when Netflix first introduced their streaming options for like $8/mo. Costs have increased these days, but they are still a lot lower than cable or satellite as far as I understand. I think I pay around $28/mo for Netflix now, less than that for Prime itself (a bit extra for a couple of other prime streamers like Max plus their ad-removal option, so maybe $20/mo), and about $18/mo for Hulu ad-free. In all I think it sums up to about $90/mo...for complete and total freedom to watch whatever I choose whenever I choose, and I basically have access to 90% of shows, movies, etc. that are available on streaming.
Even if you don't want to pay for streaming, tvs like my LG, or Samsung, etc. offer "apps" now. They are kind of like smart phones, with app stores and apps for everything related to TV entertainment and beyond even. Lot of streaming services out there, including free ones. So you could check out Tubi, and they alone offer almost every video and show on streaming spanning a couple of decades now, for free...you have to watch ads, but its pretty light weight in terms of how much cable/sat TV still shows you ads! There are a few other apps now, that offer totally free streaming with ads, so you still don't actually have to pay any subscription fees at all, to have the freedom to watch anything at any time. With the options these days, there is so little reason to stick with cable or satellite TV. They lock you into huge packages of channels, equipment rental fees, DRM junk, poor quality (I've never seen cable or sat compare to the 4k UHD 10-bit HDR quality you get on modern streaming platforms), 90% of which you'll never use, to sustain their monthly income needs, when most of that kind of content can be found streaming for free....exception being maybe news and sports (although, with Prime and I think Hulu, you have the option to add those things as well for a small monthly fee if its something critical to you.)
We have no over-air channels here - can't access anything unless you buy a plan. The good thing is that Canada has a law where they have to provide basic cable for no more than 25/month. It doesn't cover much, but it's better than nothing!