A Year Without Cable

Monday, April 25th, 2011 @ 5:55pm

Nearly a year ago, I felt brave enough to try the impossible. Would it be possible to go without cable?

And a year later, the answer is a resounding yes.

With the onset of things such as Hulu, Netflix, ESPN3, and iTunes, I’ve found that a lot of media can be found online for “free” or for a nominal cost. And I believe that it’s scaring cable companies. Just today, an article popped on how 7% of Americans subscribe to Netflix, and that’s an ever growing number. Unless cable provides try and adapt to the ever changing market they may end up on the losing side before too long; not unlike the situation between Redbox and Blockbuster.

In the past year, I’ve been able to watch a majority of the shows I watch on Netflix or Hulu — as long as I’m willing to sacrifice a delay and not have the need to see it immediately. Additionally, most of the football games I wanted to watch last fall ended up being on ESPN3 or CBSSports so it was a simple affair to stream the content live.

In the short run, it’s not for everyone. Many sports events have blackouts and a few networks do not license their content to be made available for various streaming sites. But for me, it’s an excellent value allowing me to save $60-80 a month and to be able to pick what I want to watch when I want to watch it 75% of the time.

3 Responses to “A Year Without Cable”

  1. Brian Smith said
    Apr 25th, 2011 @ 8:30pm

    We’ve been without cable for about two years now. That’s approaching $1500 in savings, and we haven’t really missed having it. We probably also would have had at least three or four multiple-day outages during that time, and wasted hours of time on the phone with customer service.

  2. Mark & Beth Ann Smith said
    Apr 26th, 2011 @ 6:02pm

    Works for us too!
    Add an HD TV antenna to the mix and you get all the network stuff in real time!

  3. Chris said
    Nov 28th, 2011 @ 12:44pm

    I think about 90% of the top programs are already available for free online or Over the Air via HD signal.