Is TV ,cable or satelite worth the cost?

Tiredtraveler
Solo PL
Last weekend was a trial weekend for HBO and Cinemax on Dish. I have basic dish service that has no premium channels. Friday evening I discovered the trial weekend so I surfed the program guide to see if there was anything that I wanted to see. To my surprise even though this was supposed to be a showcase of what was on these 10 or 12 premium channels there was virtually nothing I would take the time to watch.
the vast majority was what I used to consider filler(talking heads, movies I have never heard of and older movies that were bad the first time and worse not that they are out of date.Truly the old saying hold true: "500 channels and not a thing on"
What are the broadcast, cable and satellite services going to do if viewership of pro sports continues to decline. I think that is all keeping them afloat right now. Are TV services worth the cost or is I-TV, Netflicks, Hulu and Amazon better.

19 comments

  • FTS
    •
    7 years ago
    No
  • flagooner
    •
    7 years ago
    Yes, but only because I don't want to go without.
  • s275ironman
    •
    7 years ago
    Internet-based streaming television packages are becoming more popular. Average starting price for most services is about $40/month. Pretty much all the sports networks and other staples are included in these subscriptions. It is not a la carte, so no picking which channels you have, but it is better than paying for hundreds of channels you have no interest in watching. Services like these are going to eventually make cable and satellite subscription services go obsolete because they will keep losing subscribers that don't want to pay the outrageous fees they charge.
  • Cashman1234
    •
    7 years ago
    Based on the cost - I think cable will probably decline over the coming years. I think folks will use steaming services for program content - and they will use news apps for other content. The cost is too high for what can be gotten elsewhere.

    That being said, cell costs are also too high. But there appears to be increased growth in the reliance on cell networks. I think there are folks who now don't have a traditional home phone - and they also don't maintain cable service.
  • Lurker_X
    •
    7 years ago
    I think the entire concept of paying separately for cable TV is on the way out. Notice how hard the service providers push "package deals" nowadays. Sometimes you have to deliberately order a package and delete stuff from it, in order to get basic internet-only service.

    I have not had cable TV for about 10 years now, and I only had it for a short while then because I was interested in the 2007 election primaries and debates.
  • londonguy
    •
    7 years ago
    It can't be worse than you're terrestrial TV, probably the worst tv in the developed world :-)
  • shailynn
    •
    7 years ago
    I pay $195 a month for cable and internet. It went up from about $150 a year ago. I never got that, you’re losing customers so you raise it on the ones that are left?

    I have 4 TVs hooked up all of which require some sort of box, only 1 TV has a DVR, but all boxes are HD. I think my cable company offers 4 internet speeds and I have the 2nd to the fastest which seems to lag a little in the evenings (probably because everyone is at home using theirs). I have my own cable modem and router which probably saves me around $15 a month.

    I watch sports as background noise, walking dead and game of thrones. If my wife didn’t live with me I could cut out cable completely although I would miss certain sporting games. With the internet I could survive without cable.
  • Papi_Chulo
    •
    7 years ago
    Very few players thus pretty-much a monopoly - the public usually gets screwed with monopolies
  • shadowcat
    •
    7 years ago
    When I was married with kids, I had Dish with all of the premium movie channels and it cost about $200/mo. Now I'm a 1 person household and I only like to watch movies. I don't care if they are old. They are new to me. I quit all TV services about 5 years ago. Now I have Netflix for $9.99/mo and I get Hulu free using my daughter's account. She uses my Netflix account free. I get my weather and news off off the internet.

    I'm happy. I guess it just depends on what you like to watch.
  • Jascoi
    •
    7 years ago
    it can be tempting.

    bottom line is NO.
  • rickdugan
    •
    7 years ago
    If it were not for the kids' content (especially Disney) and NFL Sunday Ticket, I would have dumped my satellite provider a long time ago. Amazon Prime and Netflix are both dirt cheap and you can get premium subscriptions to HBO, Starz, etc., through Amazon Prime for a small additional charge.

    Most major TV networks now air episodes of their popular shows right on their own sites just a day or two after airing, so you don't don't even need to pay for access to that content anymore - though you still have to sit through commercials.

    We cut the chord on home phones years ago - no need with all the cell phones we have in the house.

    I agree with the notion that cable and satellite providers are screwed long term, especially when Disney and sports can be streamed live.
  • Conundrum
    •
    7 years ago
    I still have "rabbit ears" for my TV. Dumped cable 15 years ago. Use netflix for dvd and online movies. Even now, I find I watch TV less and less...
  • Rick999
    •
    7 years ago
    I still have dish but dropped most of the movie channels but still got HBO Cinemax because they had something on I watched the last time I thought about dropping it. No also have the playboy channel which I watch a bit. They have some interesting shows.
    I watch the BBC channel and syfy channel both for science fiction and local and national news channels more than all the other channels. I also like the history channel and msnbc channel listening and watching financial news if I'm home during market hours. History channel has a show called ancient aliens which I like listening to, although it's also good to fall asleep too as well. Science channel and discovery channel I also watch. I used to watch the weather channel but now not so much except I do like their sos survival tips series they recently started. Useful info in that series. I never knew in a survival situation, you could start a fire by prying open a digital camera and use an optical lens inside like a magnifying glass to start a fire. I didn't think about that. The series has tips and a real life story of people getting into survival stories, usually someone got lost somewhere in the wilderness but never intended to get lost.
  • theDirkDiggler
    •
    7 years ago
    In a word, no. But in my case, i don't have time to or wouldn't want to spend hours in front of a TV watching mediocre content anyway, but that's another discussion...
  • Rick999
    •
    7 years ago
    Oh in case someone is interested demon grandma on BBC show right now called Legion. I saw this part before. Demon grandma crawled up a wall and ceiling in the diner. I think I'm usually doing stuff online at the same time as several of these science fiction shows.
  • Rick999
    •
    7 years ago
    When I'm not using the show to fall asleep.
  • Rick999
    •
    7 years ago
    Worth the cost? If you are on a tight budget, probably not unless you like watching a lot of tv. In my case I need to upgrade a lot of tv gear to use Netflix etc and don't want to spend the money to upgrade everything right now. I'm still using old style TV sets but had a digital picture years ago. I know I'm wasting money keeping the same old satellite plan subscription. Apple just needs to get on the ball and come up with a super cheap fantastic plan that includes everything including playboy etc. that I can order from any device.
    Plus maybe come up with a LinkedIn alternative where you can finger swipe text on the LinkedIn like site so that everyone using an iPad can more easily read text on LinkedIn without trouble even if they aren't 20 something anymore. I can force almost every site except LinkedIn to make text bigger. I might even spend several hours a month using LinkedIn learning videos if I could enlarge them enough to see them on an iPad. I hate watching LinkedIn learning videos on my hard computer chair. Of course the more time I spend online, the less time I spend actually watching these other tv shows. I can easily multitask on my sofa if I don't fall asleep. Apple TV could have LinkedIn like learning on the tv screen and the tv show spit screen so you could learn and be entertained at the same time. That would be a great reason to upgrade my tv. As long as Apple didn't dictate what I could watch.
  • Rick999
    •
    7 years ago
    Apple engineers could come up with a pay as u want model so I can get news, sports, science fiction, msnbc, history channel, whatever and LinkedIn learning plus split screen with 2 different tv shows one side and so with LinkedIn learning filling up other half of screen and sound for all with option to turn down sound or mute and pause any of the streams and I would be interested in that. I could watch and hear the Internet and listen and watch 2 separate tv shows at one time. Might need separate speakers or good sound control to turn down sound on certain streams.
  • Longball300
    •
    7 years ago
    Spectrum cable bundled TV/Phone/Internet @ $160 mo. Just enough TV channel "packages" to get all the sports broadcasts I need. If it wasn't for live sports I could go without cable.

    Have a laptop set up right next to my recliner with an HDMI cable running up to TV for internet. Amazon Prime gives you all the TV and movies you need for $100 a year not to mention the 2 day shipping for purchases.

    That way I can also put all the free YouTube music videos and porn from all the free sites up on the TV.....




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