I, too, often have the TV on just for background noise, and I watch a lot of the scheduled network shows. Neither H nor I are really into sports, so we’ve been fine with just an OTA antenna and a few streaming services. There are dozens of channels available OTA, many that I wouldn’t watch (shopping, religion, etc), but plenty that show reruns of beloved old sitcoms and dramas (L&O SVU marathon every Saturday!). I thought I would miss the DVR when we cancelled satellite, but if I miss a show I can usually stream it somewhere. Also, I have an app called ontvtonight, where you can customize a program guide to the channels available in your area and you can include only the channels that you might watch.
We used to pay $250 per month for cable and internet. We now pay $99 for internet with 500 speed. We upgraded from 300 speed ($79) when all our kids and spouses visited and did work from home. No landline for years- only cell.
Indoor ($50) antenna from Best Buy (hidden behind a roman blind) receives all the local channels for free. We have Netflix and this is our primary streaming app.
Amazon prime video comes with prime. We don’t pay for the commercial free one. But, H loves the PBS documentaries at $4 extra.
CNBC Pro is $30 because that is the only channel H watched when we had cable. It works well because they block out the commercials, too.
It’s been 4 years since we got rid of the cable, right before the pandemic! I was not going to pay $230 a month for cable, internet and phone. We pay $79 a month for internet/home phone. The streaming services we pay for are Netflix, Hulu, and Prime. The kids pay for Apple, Disney and AMC and we all share our services. D2 also has log ins from friends for Max and Peacock which she shares. We have free Paramount plus right now too. H and I are not big sports watchers so we don’t need something like YTTV. H will turn on Hulu live for the month of the Tour de France. I think the last time I calculated what we are now paying it was around $160 per month which is still much less than the $230 we were paying 4 years ago!
I’m in a similar situation to Snowball. I only have the phone because it was cheaper at the time to bundle it all together. And my FIL might still call it once in awhile, and H’s school calls that one. We never answer it, because the phone receiver died and I’m not paying for another. Anyhow, I am sure we could live without that.
But what about the voice activated remote? I hate hate hate trying to find what program is on what streaming service. With the remote, I just have to say the show/movie and it goes to that streaming service, or it will show me which options I have and how much they cost to rent, if applicable. If I want to watch football, I say “football” and it brings up and NFL, college, etc. - on currently or upcoming! Is there any other service that offers this? This is something I don’t see us living without, but at $290/month it is getting harder.
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I usually use the IMDb app to find which streaming service a particular show or movie is on, and I also have a voice-activated remote with my Roku. Probably wouldn’t work for sports, though.
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I had triple play from Verizon - landline, internet, and cable. I dropped both landline and cable and was able to get a very reasonable rate for internet only. Had I just dropped cable, it would not have been such a good rate.
I will! I went to our home PC to sign up today for the free YTTV week. I used my google account and password (shocked I actually have that written somewhere), but it needs the Microsoft info from DH’s email. He’s the tech guru in the house. He’s also been the one shy of cutting cable due to sports, but he’s also the one complaining the Loudest.
I’m looking forward to no more spam calls on landline.
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Did you know that you can make a small monthly or annual contribution to PBS and have total access to their programming, often years back, and sometimes ahead of broadcast? Of course in Brooklyn we have access to several PBS stations over the air but I like paying my share.
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Our Fire TV stick (very cheap) has voice searches which we use all the time. We also have YTTV (for about 3 years now) and are quite happy with it and its DVR (although we would like to delete old shows). So we pay $73 for YTTV, $50 for internet plus Netflix, Prime, and whatever service might have a show we currently want to watch (HULU at the moment).
Even if you have a smart TV, I think the consensus is that an external device (Fire, Roku, Apple) will work faster and more smoothly than the built-in app.
Oh and we dropped our landline years ago and never for one second missed it, even though it was a bit gut wrenching.
I don’t want to say that sounds sketchy but it does seem odd. YTTV is part of Google (or they have the same parent company) and each profile will be connected to a gmail address, but I don’t remember Microsoft info being needed when I signed up. What about people who don’t use any MS devices?
We need to ditch the Comcast/Xfinity Triple Play package too, but I don’t see a replacement for Root Sports that isn’t still pretty pricey (Direct-TV and Fubo), and there’s no way my husband will go without watching his Mariner baseball games. Grr. Have any other northwesterners found a solution?
We have Youtube TV at our home base in CA and we go to our NYC home quite often. We can sign into Youtube TV there but there aren’t any local CA programming available when we are in NY, just channels local to NYC. If we want to watch the Giants or the Niners play on TV (available in CA local channels), they are not available in NYC.
At one time, I paid ~$200/month between cable, Internet, and phone bundle. Now my total is net of roughly $30/month. With the small fraction of the price, I have a higher quality and more enjoyable TV viewing, higher quality and faster Internet, and a higher quality new phone each year.
- $40/Month – 500Mbps Internet
- $20/Month – Verizon Network Data
- $1/Month – Hulu (Black Friday Deal)
- Free – Hulu (credit card, have 2 Hulu accounts)
- Free – Disney+ (credit card)
- Free – Paramount+/Showtime (unlimited free trials)
- Free – Galaxy S24 Plus (via trade in bonuses, requires Internet + phone plan above)
- Negative ~$30/month (remaining trade in bonuses, split per month)
Unfortunately where we live there is only one internet company. We could get Starlink but it would not be faster. Happy with the internet but, it is expensive.
We may have the same Internet. My provider also has divisions of 300Mbps and 500Mbps, and also has a sticker price of $99.99/month for 500Mbps in my area. However, they can give substantial discounts/promotions, if you call and ask for lower cost than sticker. In my case, we got it down from $100 to $40. Most cable providers also support a similar type of discount below sticker. This differs from typical streaming , which are more likely to offer national sales during Black Friday, Streaming Day and such; but less likely to offer variable pricing to different customers via interpersonal sales.
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So, if those CA teams are playing on CBS for example, why wouldn’t it be on in NY. I don’t watch sports.
Because sports broadcasts are restricted to local markets. So although it’s CBS, the west coast and east coast stations will show different teams/games. It’s one of the most annoying things to me about American sports broadcasting, because I travel often for work and can’t watch a game if I’m “out of market” (in NFL lingo).
@cbreeze, I get why you wouldn’t get to see the 49ers while in NYC (unless you had the Sunday Ticket), but you should definitely be able to watch Giants games. They’re our local NJ/NY team after all.
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Well, shoot. So, is this not going work for us then? We are located in the Midwest. DH likes to watch college football and bball games, especially big 10 network. Likes Sunday pro football games and Monday night football. Doesn’t really watch much more sports than that, although I’ll occasionally see him watching golf if he can’t fund anything else, but that’s not important to him really.
YTTV will get you the B1G Network and Sunday & Monday Night Football (Thursday Night Football is on Amazon Prime). To see out of market (non local teams) Sunday afternoon games, you need an additional package called “Sunday Ticket” which is an extra $349 for the season.
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