Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Who Needs Cable?




A lot of people are surprised when I tell them I only have one television and I don’t have cable. I have never understood why people feel the need to have a television in every room in their house. Do you really need to fry your chicken and watch television at the same time?

I also feel that the cable company prices are too high…. and personally I can not afford them. In most cases you need HD, broad band and the good movie and sports channels, this will run you about 120.00-150.00 per month. I am at work at least 40 hours a week plus the 45 minutes it takes me to get back and forth. Needless, to say I spend more time at work than I do at home so I can not financially justify spending money on cable.

Now back in the day when the rates were affordable and I actually looked forward to the shows coming on HBO ( Def Comedy Jam) things were fine. But now days they show the same thing over and over and over again. I do use Netflix for times when there is absolutely nothing to be found on regular television. But honestly I do not miss cable, I thought I would but I do not. Trust me………there is some great shows that come on regular television. But I am not the only one giving up on cable.

According to an article on yahoo.com thousand are cutting the cable 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...

Even more trouble for the big carriers is the report's assertion that U.S. TV watchers are getting a taste for online video, with an estimated 17 percent of the U.S. TV audience watching at least one or two shows online in a given week last year, up from just 12 percent in 2008, and set to rise to 21 percent this year.

No comments: