200,000 people stopped paying for TV last quarter, but why?

With free OTA TV in HD nowadays, why pay for cable or sat? Unless you happen to be in an unlucky area, you can get all your major networks for free, and a lot of stuff aired on cable channels is in some way covered by the internet. Of course, you will loose some programming, but is it worth the expense? I think a lot of people paying for cable or sat have lived during a period in which several of their "must-have" cable channels didn't exist, so it is not that difficult to live without, especially with the internet. You might as well take some of the money saved and get a better internet connection.... or build a huge DVD collection. Or put it into your kid's college fund, if that applies to you. There are lots of places your money can do good - and it isn't in the pockets of Dish, DirecTV, Comcast, etc.

I think they did a pretty good job of advertising. I would see the commercial probably 10x more than most of the other commercials, and it was nearly on every station I can remember xD

I grew up in the 60s when there was only 3 channels over old analog tv plus a couple of public channels. Perhaps I'm being nostalgic but the vast majority of the shows then were good entertainment. Real actors, not reality tv or dancing with the ho's. By about the early 80s, prior to the internet, people were hoodwinked into the concept of paying for tv for the perceived extra vale content. I never jumped on that bandwagon. I am willing to pay what I think tv is worth. Zero money as far as I am concerned. Now with the internet I rarely use the tv for any thing other than a computer monitor or to watch dvd and bluray movies. Unless they come up with the holodeck I can live without tv. Pay money for it? Ha!

Agree! Freeview is actually quite good! I invested in a bit more expensive Freeview box and now I can record TV it almost seems like sky again! just with a few less channels, which to be fair were mostly rubbish.

Plus ITV, Channel 4 and BBC all have there own streaming services for there channels so its no big loss.

I know, BT will charge £5 for not going through Direct Debit as well, and after getting an Experian account I found that they won't help your credit rating either if you don't pay by Direct Debit :S they won't mark it down but won't contribute to the fact your paying for a monthly bill?

Scum Bags!!

Dang you did get a good deal with them! How much I wished I was in an area where I can get off BT lines and onto . . . well virgin or any other company willing to offer me an alternative line

I have BT vision but have considered dumping it due to mostly using it for movies on demand which are also available through PS3 and the freeview reception through BT vision being faulty when using HDMI output (don't know why but tuning/reception using other connection is much better than when plugging in hdmi cable).

Considered getting a FreeviewHD box and dumping BT Vision and the monthly charge but given that BT have already been working with major UK TV companies and others on a replacement system (http://www.youview.com/) it seemed like throwing money away. So I'm just going to make do with Freeview/BT vision until then. Sucks having a FullHD TV for almost 6 years and the only HD stuff I view on it are Blu-rays (and my PC when I used it as my monitor). BT Vision "On Demand" HD stuff requires that you download it 3-4 hours before you watch it. Looking forward to some time in the near future being able to watch HD tv!

I did this 15+ years ago. Since I'm in a suburban area I can get a reasonable amount of traditional broadcast stations and now the internet fills in some additonal shows. My biggest complaint about pay TV, is you get a lot of junk you don't want nor will ever watch. What you do want has more and more commercials and less content. It seems like years ago shows were so much better and engauged the viewer, now it's mostly stuff that you soon forget.

I hear you, samething here and a antenna doesn't help.
Comcast....got you by the b@lls and slowly squeezing.

Never paid for TV...Freeview's good enough for me. I have a few friends who say most of the paid stuff isn't worth it anyway.

Why do I not watch TV anymore?

Probably because it goes something like this:

Nothing to watch
Rerun
Nothing to watch
GOSSIPGOSSIPGOSSIP
Oh look, a decent movie. What are they saying?
*turn up volu- FOR ONLY FIFTEEN PAYMENTS OF NINETEEN NINETY FIVE THE SUPER SONIC JET STREAM STEAM MOP CAN BE YO-
*mute*
*15 minutes of continuous commercials later*
What was I watching, again?

Forget it, time to use Netflix.

"Doc, It Only HUrts When I Don't Laugh.......

In which case, you might consider adding a premium porn channel to your service, then kick back and try to enjoy the ride....:rolleyes:

I ditched cable about 2 years ago because I knew I didn't watch at least 3/4 of the channels I had in my plan or whatever.
So I noticed one of the biggest problems is having channels you never watch in your entire life(MTV).

They should make a package for you to be able to pick certain amount of channels for a reasonable price.

you can watch football on network (free) TV. Unless you have NFL ticket, you really only miss one broadcast (MNF on ESPN)

I once asked my Comcast provider whether they would agree to sell us channels "a la carte." The answer was -- "we'll get back to you on that."

The cable companies are SCARED S#!TLESS that people will actually WANT that service, will DEMAND it, and will flock in DROVES to the Internet to ESCAPE THE DELUGE OF CRAPPY, ABYSMALLY-BAD CHANNELS that exist right now.

The last thing in the WORLD that they want is to sell you individual channels.

Yeah, but isn't Jon Gruden still on MNF? "Who's got two thumbs on the mute button and doesn't want to listen to Jon? THIS GUY!"

The thursday night games on the NFL network, and there are more this year than last year. Since the owners couldn't bump the season to 18 games the other solution to getting us more football was more days of the week with games. Sat is college, Fri is high school, so we'll see more and more thursday games.

So Hulu and Netflix are great 'n all, but can I get a DVR to work with my antenna? And when will Hulu get CBS shows?

I'm about ready to cut the cord, not because I can't afford it. I'm one of the lucky ones that still has a good paying job. I'm about to cut it because "their ain't cr*p on tv".
I'm not into sports...that nixes about 20 channels. I don't watch the shop on tv channels. That nixes another 10. The local (thanks to digital) 10-12 channels I can get OTA.
I get most of the news from the internet anyway, so why pay 40-100 dollars a month for cable?

Sick of the crappy programming...
To Many Commercials..way to many commercials.... 1 hr show u lucky to see more than 7 minutes before a 4 minute commercial...
To Much Paid programming...
To many repeats..... I mean the same movie twice in a row, come on now...
Cost keeps creeping up every month.. a dollar here a dollar there ...
Just had enough of COMCAST doo doo..

Cut the cord last month.. do not miss it at all
Hello Netflix... no commercials ... wahooooo

ditched Comcast after my wife watched the last episode of The Sopranos
ditched the paper newspaper seven years ago, or so
kept the wife for 20 years, and counting

brick and mortar businesses are doomed in this economy of services and internet connections, who's going to a bar to meet people when they have facebook (arrhhh!!! wrong example...)

life goes on, in the cloud