Apparently I’m not alone…

Updated on August 3, 2012 By Ken Begg 15 Comments

Just saw this:

“More than 400,000 American homes have cut the cord and ditched their cable and satellite pay-TV services since the start of 2012. The figure includes 169,000 subscribers shed by Time Warner Cable last quarter, marking the service provider’s tenth consecutive quarter of customer losses. It also includes the 52,000 net subscribers DirecTV lost this past quarter, and 176,000 customers who left Comcast.”

Note that’s merely in the first half of the year, more or less. Clearly this at least partly because of the economy. However, it’s also because of attempts to force people to upgrade, which is why I dumped my Comcast cable when they took away the few channels I was interested in and raised the price to get those channels from like $25 to $75 a month. Should they continue to hemorrhage viewers, it could finally result in one or both of the two changes that should have happened long ago: the option for a la carte channel selection, and the forced monopolization of one cable company per area.

Personally, it was a tad weird not having TV at first, and at certain instances it remains somewhat inconvenient. However, as expected I’ve weened myself from the glass tit pretty quickly. I barely notice now that I don’t have it.

Of course, I still have my Internet connection and my DVDs.

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  • It’s funny, but as technology grows things like TV and cable seem to be becoming less and less important.  I watch very little Television these days, and most of what I do watch comes to the computer sooner or later.

  • Jon

    I’ve been following your posts and thought I’d finally chime in. I’ve actually went the opposite way myself. I didn’t have television at all for for 6-7 years, just Netflix and the Internet. 

    I finally went back to cable because a faster Internet connection was only $10 cheaper if I upgraded my existing connection vs. buying a package deal that had HD Showtime (that I seldom watched) a Tivo and some other nonsense. Now cable is part of my condo assessments.

    My watching patterns are that I’ll have the TV on for noise rather than viewing. I’ve also found that Tivo and the like have been instrumental in actually getting me to try new shows. That being said, if I wasn’t already paying for it in my assessments I wouldn’t have it now.

  • Petoht

    It’s the bundling.  I bet people would come back to cable in droves if they allowed for ala carte channels.  The only reason Oprah’s channel still exists is because it’s siphoning money from channels people actually watch.  They’re also acting predictably and flailing about, as they have been for years.  Adding more and more channels that cater to very specific niches isn’t going to save you.  Just how many golf channels can you really support?  To say nothing of once-niche channels completely abandoning their concept in a shallow bid for more viewers.  Discovery is the “blow shit up channel”.  History channel seems to be “ghosts and Hitler”.  Game Show Network stopped showing old game shows nearly a decade ago, and I seem to recall someone saying that Cartoon Network has a live-action show now.  Really, at this point, MTV not showing music is quaint.

    Of course, with digital over-the-air, I have even less interest in cable, especially since Chicago has the awesome WCIU family.  Just last week, their movie channel (26.5 THIS) was showing Sugar Hill.  Tell me again why I need cable?

  • zombiewhacker

    Don’t forget the sci-fi channel now shows wrestling, Nick TV Land occasionally shows theatrical films, and almost every channel shows infomercials in the early morning hours, particularly on weekends.

  • Petoht

    Oh, God, I forgot about the infomercials.  I don’t have cable so the only time I can watch it is when I’m at a hotel, and since I work midnights, I’m often up all night, and all I can think is, “Why would I pay for this?”  I’ll stick with Netflix and my Roku box, thanks.

  • The Rev.

    Cartoon Network actually has a few live-action shows.  Granted, one I caught whilst flipping seemed like a cross between “Power Rangers” and “Ben 10,” so at least it kind of fit, but the ads I’ve seen for most of them haven’t even had that slender thread.

    I assume you mean the Sugar Hill with zombies?  That’s a fun one.

  • GalaxyJane

    I swear, my low point on standard cable infomercials was while I was briefly working night shift at the Fort Bragg ER and staying up nights on my days off because it was easier than shifting my clock around.  I had free basic cable that came with the rent and was flipping channels and saw an infomerical for, I kid you not, Murano glass d**dos. Apparently they were supposed to be works of art as well as able to be used for their primary function. That was the day I started my as-yet uncomplete quest to invent the world’s first effective brain bleach. 

    Holy sweet mother of Zarathustra but that was one of the most surreal things I have ever seen, two well-dressed QVC types proclaiming the merits of their wares.  Some days I weep for the human race.  Other times I just laugh at the silly monkeys, I have no idea which category that falls into.

    So, I guess what I am saying is, I don’t miss cable?

  • GalaxyJane

    Yeah, THIS and Bounce have both shown Sugar Hill fairly recently.  I love Baron Samedi in that one.

  • The Rev.

    Anybody who doesn’t love Baron Samedi in that one is…well, in case someone here actually doesn’t like him, I won’t say it; suffice to say, it’s not flattering at all.

  • All I need is my library of VHS, DVD, Laserdisc, 8mm and 16mm. As long as I have machines that work, I’m good. Dumped all broadcast TV years ago. Other than the occasional gem that pops up on TCM, I know I’m not missing anything. Even when I had it, TCM and Boomerang were about the only channels I was still watching. There was a long stretch in my childhood where I didn’t have TV at all, so when I got it again, I taped just about everything I could. I wish I’d taped a bit more of the newer sitcoms like Wings and Home Improvement, and maybe even the later seasons of Cheers after they got rid of Shelly Long, but I’m pretty happy with the arrangement for the most part (even more so, now that Ken has started dumping his impressive collection of videos)!

  • Petoht

    That’s the one.  Amusingly, the next week they were showing American Graffiti.  THIS can be pretty hit or miss, but when it’s a hit, it’s freaking fantastic.  And every Saturday morning after work, I get to watch the Outer Limits.

    And the rest of the WCIU family is fun.  I was bouncing between Friday the 13th the Series and an original Star Trek episode today before watching a little of Svengoolie.

  • Ericb

    I only had cable for about 6 months in 1994.  I tend to think nostalgia us bad for the health but, hey, back then the Sci-Fi channel was packed with classic horror and sci-fi both tv and film, MTV played music videos, TLC regularly broadcast documentaries on subject like the Mongols and the Battle of the Somme and there was only 1 reality tv show on all of cable (the Real World on MTV).  What the hell happened?

  • Lawyer Ku

    How do you make a glass distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack)?

  • Thank goodness I live in the UK, where you can get your drivel for free and there are no infomercials, just phone-in scam shows and gambling!

  • Ken_Begg

     Truly, it sounds like paradise.