One Year Without Cable

A year ago, we cut the cord. We struggled with this decision. We used cable as a crutch to help entertain Olivia when making dinner. We watched TV during any downtime and, with the DVR, we only watched shows we “wanted” to watch. Our first home, our condo, provided free cable through our HOA dues, so we took advantage of it.

One house later, the HOA didn’t cover the cost of cable and it is rather pricey. We were less than satisfied with the amount of TV we were watching, but if we decrease it, would our usage justify the price? With Catalina here and her uncovered medical bills arriving, we couldn’t justify it anymore.

Looking back a year and a few days, it was an awesome decision. We were given an Xbox 360 as a present and were impressed with the ESPN3 app. When our trial ended, we sprung $50 for an annual Xbox Gold account. Months later, we added on Netflix for $8/mo. The combo means we can watch a good amount of sports programming and entertainment programming for about ~$12/mo. That price makes sense.

I used to watch PBS as a kid. Sesame Street. Mr. Roger’s. Carmen Sandiego. With the Disney Channel, I forgot what free programming existed over-the-air. When we dropped cable, we started exploring KLRU, the local PBS station. We were impressed with what they had for kids of all ages. Personally, I discovered the subchannels. For those of us who had cable before the analog-digital transition, we were used to having a single channel for each station. With today’s digital technology, KLRU now has four different “subchannels” broadcasting. KLRU (the mothership on 18.1) is your normal PBS station, Create (18.2) is mostly (only?) do-it-yourself cooking/crafting/handyman shows. KLRU-Q, 18.3, has a great deal of adult PBS content and 18.4 is a Spanish channel that is much, much closer to PBS than what traditional Spanish television broadcasts. In other words, something I’ll let Olivia watch since I don’t have to worry about a random soccer highlight including the broadcaster surrounded by 30 bikini-clad women jumping around him.

The local channels are decent. Most of the shows we watch now were already on those networks. There are some nice things like a couple “weather” subchannels and one local station has actual music videos playing 24/7 on one of their subchannels (granted, the music is all about 20-years old). UT’s student television station that we’re close enough to campus to pick up including Bloomberg on one of it’s subchannel, so we have 24-hour news too.

Add on Netflix and ESPN3, we’re doing just fine. We miss the occasional UT football game on FX, Fox Sports Net, or LHN (who actually gets that one, though?), so it is a good reason to make plans with our cable-friendly friends/local establishments. Taking the leap to cut cable was more our own fear that we would miss something, which does happen, but doesn’t make the world stop spinning.