Why I Cut the Cable Cord

I recently read an article on Yahoo! News that stated that up to 800,000 people cut the "cable cord" by the end of 2009. That is, they dumped their cable, satellite, or telco TV providers and switched to alternative methods such as web based video, down-loadable shows, by-mail subscription services (like Netflix), or even old fashioned antennas. I'd like to chime in and be counted as someone who cut the cable cord and never regretted that decision for a minute.

I must say that when I considered giving up my cable it was a difficult decision. It was kind of frightening, actually, how much of a hold that ole boob tube had on me. I couldn't imagine not having access to regular television and wondered how I would cope. But that was actually the turning point for me: when an entertainment reaches to a point when you start to think: "Oh, I couldn't possibly bear to give THAT up!" you know it's time to dump it, and dump it fast. It has moved beyond being a simple entertainment into something potentially much darker and more dangerous.

But what got me thinking about getting rid of cable, to be honest, was not the addiction factor (at first), but rather a combination of the financial aspect and a growing disgust with the quality of regular television. It seemed on a yearly basis (though I may exaggerate) Comcast (my cable company) would increase my cable bill; and as there were a few "extended" channels I liked to watch beyond basic cable, I was paying more than just the base line price. And as my income was slowly dropping with the rocky economic times, I was having a harder and harder time justifying spending $65+ a month for cable. (I'm sure the monthly cost is much higher by now.)

And then there was the overall disgust factor with regular television. I was getting sick of all the commercials. Not only in the quantity, but in the quality. It seemed like each month a new commercial would come out that had to "push the envelope" in raunchiness and tastelessness. And of course during October one was always flooded with horrific images of blood, terror, and violence in "honor" of Halloween, mainly as advertisements for horror movies on tv and at the theaters. Even the "safe" commercials were getting to me: spewing out materialistic messages about what I should buy and HAD to buy to be happy and feel successful. Who needs that? And as a faithful tv watcher since the 1970s, I couldn't help but notice how the length set aside for commercials was steadily getting longer, while the length of a normal tv episode was getting shorter.

And then, of course, there was the appalling lack of quality television available on cable, even with all the channels I was paying for. Oh, there would be a few decent shows on PBS or Home and Garden and a rare half decent science fiction series on Sci-Fi (now Syfy, I believe), but most of it was pure, unadulterated trash. It became nigh impossible to find any modern dramas of any real depth and character that one could watch without feeling dragged through the mud. (And if you did, they tended not to last much beyond the first season.) I found myself drawn to channels that focused on oldies (vintage) television and or did interesting performance based (not backstabbing) reality series like Project Runway or Top Chef.

But when a family member told me about Netflix and I started to look more closely at the DVDs being offered for free rental from my local public libraries, I began to slowly realize I didn't have to stay tied to cable tv forever. With these two main sources of DVDs I could get rid of all three of the main things I disliked about cable tv: the high fees, the commercials, and the lack of quality programming. Instead of paying $65+ a month, I now pay $19 a month for 3 DVDs at a time on Netflix (as well as unlimited streaming of instant shows on my computer). And between my two libraries, I can check out more than 12 DVDs at a time! The only commercials I ever have to suffer through any more are the few brief DVD previews on my DVDs, and those I can skip if I like. And as for quality, with Netflix I have access to an incredible range of quality television series, from the 1950s to the present, including excellent series from across the ocean through the BBC. And I get to pick and choose what I want to watch! I am no longer held captive by the cable company's producers who choose to show hours of drivel and trash because that's what "the American public wants to watch." Well, this particular member of the American public doesn't want to watch any of that, thank you very much!

There are also many free avenues for television online, I know, which I haven't explored. One I can recommend is the PBS website which offers complete episodes on a changing basis of such quality programs as History Detectives, Masterpiece Theatre, Secrets of the Dead, and Nova. As for my news, I check in regularly at Yahoo! and CNN to get my world and local news updates. And if necessary, I can always check out my local newspaper, the Tri-City Herald, online as well.

So join the latest television revolution! Dump your cable and discover how freeing it can be. And best of all, you can save hundreds of dollars a year doing it!

Blessings!