I don't watch all that much TV during the day - though I admit I watched the better part of an old favorite (An Unmarried Woman) this afternoon before I went to work. I sometimes like having the TV on when I am alone in the house and doing things in the kitchen. I can turn the sound up really loud and hear it through the noise of housework.
What Tom really wants is to watch less TV. He feels he is watching too much. He is unsatisfied with the offerings, but he watches anyway. When he broached the idea of reducing the channels, I thought "Not Showtime!" That means Weeds, The Big C and Dexter. Back to having to wait nearly a year for the seasons to come out on DVD! He claims we can watch them on the computer sooner, but I have never had any luck with that.
When we looked at the channel line-up packages, we both agreed we couldn't go without Bravo, Lifetime and AMC. That means Top Chef, Project Runway, Mad Men and Breaking Bad. So that takes us up a tier and the cost is amazingly close to the cost we are paying now for all the channels. That's how we ended up here. Those cable people really know which channels we actually watch - they say we get 600 channels, but we only watch about 10 of them - they know what they are doing and toss them in the more expensive package and then sweeten the deal with super cheap HBO, STARZ and Encore.
Oh no, if we drop HBO I'll miss Boardwalk Empire. Damn.
I am making the call tomorrow. I may just have to drop it all down to basic and see how painful it is.
Maybe basic plus Showtime...
4 comments:
We haven't had cable or satellite in years and haven't missed it. We were watching some shows, yes, but most of our channels were going to waste. We decided to try going cold turkey and, for us, it worked out fine. We don't tend to watch TV during the week anyway and I never have it on during the day. On the weekends, we watch DVDs of shows, so yes we're almost always behind. We do have some sort of tivo-like thing on our stereo receiver (or something like that, I'm fuzzy on the details), so we can still record shows live and watch them later, which we did with the final season of Lost and which we are considering for the final season of Chuck. But, in general, even that goes unused for us.
We don't have cable at our cute little rental house and only get the very basic channels. And so far, we've been fine.
We rarely watch anything live (TIVO or DVR in the bedroom) and not many shows during each season. But, you are so correct that the cable company seemingly has the tiers split up so our few favorite shows are spread throughout. Now we have internet, phone, and cable with the same company. If we only go with our cells (getting rid of fax ability) the price difference is minimal. Dang it. Someone is a marketing genius.
Jan
Yeah, those marketing guys get paid the big bucks to burn us all :-)
We gave our cable up years ago now, and got a Netflix subscription. (We live in the boonies and get no reception via antenna). Honestly, we don't miss it, but we weren't big TV people to begin with. We usually watch a one-hour program on DVD (or Netflix streaming through a Roku) several weeknights (family on the couch with popcorn after dinner and homework are done) and we might watch a movie on the weekend, if we have time.
During the day, I stream NPR for company when I'm cooking or doing housework.
My husband is easily addicted to the television --he'll sit for hours with a remote, flicking through channels, mesmerized by nothing. He hated this about himself, and he's the one who suggested we get rid of the cable.
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