Is There Any Reason To Own Cable Anymore?

Partially inspired by the History channel thread, and also by the fact that I spent the night at my brother's house last night and was watching TV for the first time in months. They've got about fifty stations or so, minus the sports and music ones, and I think I spent an hour trying to find something that wasn't reality-based with no success. I was even desperate enough to sit through a whole three minutes of "Jersey Shore," before I just opened my computer up to watch old clips from "The Bold and the Beautiful."

I mean, seriously. The Learning Channel has pulled an MTV--the only show with anything near an education value who be Honey Boo Boo as the best deterrent to teen pregnancy (Seriously, that woman is already a grandmother at 33! ). A&E is no longer artistic or entertaining. A lot of shows involve housing and property, but there's only so much of that I can watch. Out of all the cable networks, the one I watch the most would be a tie between FX and Comedy Central, but five shows between two networks hardly justifies sixty dollars a months.

I realize WF and its population are out of the mainstream for a lot of things, but are there more people who are feeling this way? I see things like Roku, but I've yet to meet anyone who has one exclusively like I plan to. Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that I plan to have guests over, I wouldn't even bother owning a TV at all once I move to San Diego.

I pretty much only use my cable when I feel like watching Saturday Night Live on Saturday night. Otherwise it's pretty worthless.

No.

Haven't had cable/satellite for years. The only thing I miss is Football. There are plenty of safe steaming sites for the few shows I watch.

At 10.00 a month, Netflix is a great deal though.

AFAIK cable still offers the fastest internet connection around here. Aside from that, well if you're only watching five shows across two networks then I say no, it's not worth $60.

As for your criticism of television in general? I agree. It's crap. Reality shows have taken over, not surprising considering how cheap they are to produce. Few networks are true to their name, we've wrestling on Sy/Fy, live action shows on CartoonNetwork, and the Daily Show on ComedyCentral, television series on AMC (American Movie Classics) . . .

Oh and our news/infotainment outlets tend to be mostly devoid of newsworthy content.

The only reason I'm finding to own a TV is to have something to hook up your DVD/BluRay and/or game systems... and I've the feeling computer monitors are able to do that just as well

I've long been able to watch TV/DVDs on a monitor yet I've never hooked up a game system directly to a monitor.

I haven't had a TV the two years I've been abroad. Haven't missed it at all. There are some shows I watch online through Netflix, like Mad Men, Star Trek, or South Park on their own web site, but that's it.

I agree, there's no reason to have Cable.

That reminds me--is that you or Chuck that lives in SoCal? If so, does AT&T have an Internet package there, 'cuz the service I had with them way back when was pretty good, and I hate Comcast with the passion of a thousand white hot suns.

Most cable companies already offer cable and Internet separately, but they like to hike the prices up separately to force people into getting the bundle...just to raise he prices for both about a year later or so. Fuck that, I'll just pay sixty dollars for the 'Net.

I gave up TV long ago.

The last time I watched cable / network tv was the Lost finale. I got rid of it completely last month. Internet is about $30 / month.

I got rid of cable years ago and don't miss it at all. Now I'm at my parents' and they have the TV on all day and there's nothing worth watching except perhaps the evening news, and that's nowhere near as good as what you can find online. But my parents are still of the mindset that you're out of touch with the world if you don't get news from the tv. Those news people sure are narscissistic; at least one main story a night is about themselves. And in light of recent events, their bias against firearms ownership is obvious.

The little one likes PBS and Disney Channel. My wife occasionally watches some other shows and I occasionally watch sports or documentaries. Other than that, Netflix, DVDs or some streaming shows is about it. When the little one outgrows the kiddie shows, we'll probably get rid of cable.

Between "Watch ESPN" and the MLB packages you can cover a lot of the sports as well. (Leaving aside the streaming sites). I'm not ready to disconnect yet, but the day is coming.

Can't say I,be watched much TV recently not been anything worth watching that I can't get on the net

I've got digital broadcast and, apart from the occasional movie, I mostly watch reruns of "The Big Bang Theory" and "How I Met Your Mother"; "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" when I can find that on the X2 & X3 channels of the local stations, and old shows like "Emergency" and "Batman" on the "Retro" and "Antenna" channels. I wouldn't mind having BBC America to watch "Doctor Who", but that's the only thing I'd really like. I guess I miss "Mythbusters" a bit.

We've been without cable for a week. Roku is pretty good so far. Just takes getting used to.

I've got a PC and a Roku box hooked up to my TV. With Netflix, Amazon, HuluPlus, and all the free stuff on the Roku box, I've more stuff than I can ever watch.

I got my appletv jailbroken and installed XBMC on it so now I have every tv show and movie ever made at the touch of a button and for free. It updates regularly too so i don't have to wait to watch something. Also has a ton of free porn. To me it's the best invention since the wheel. Only thing I watch on cable are sports, cancelled half my package.

The Iranians seem to still have a use for it.
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We have the Triple Play bundle through Time Warner. I don't watch cable TV, as I have a Roku box with Netflix and HBO Go. Between the two, in my queue, I have 300 movies, and about 20 TV series that I can watch at any given time (mostly older series like ST:TNG, Cheers, and Frasier). If I don't want to watch any of those, I have my blu-ray player and about 30 DVDs (plus the Star Trek movie collection). Otherwise, that's it. I use the internet more than anything, and I'd give up the cable and the phone before I'd give that up. In fact, Time Warner just boosted my speed by 50%, for free, though technically they're charging me $3 a month for the modem now, which means I'm going to save up and by a cable modem outright instead.

So I'm getting 30Mbps speed for roughly the same price as the 20mbps, and I'm very happy with that. With that kind of speed, everyone can watch their favorite shows in HD, though my parents still prefer to watch cable TV (but they complain there's nothing on, and they're right).

My parents have DirecTV and they use it for watching Latin American shows, like the Chilean version of "Good Morning America." There's also a few dramas and crime shows that they like. So they've still got use for cable.

You can get a lot of non-US programming via the web. The Roku box has a number of networks from foreign countries.

my apartment won't let me get rid of cable. they said that because i opted to have it when i signed my lease, i can't get out of it until the lease expires.

My Internet is tethered to my cable. My kids watch it a lot too.

I didn't bother getting it when I moved into my current apartment. All I really feel I'm missing might be the animated Black Dynamite series, which I'll probably catch later through alternate means and maybe just watching the revived Toonami for the hell of it.

The only thing I miss from cable (the basic cable that Comcast left on after the previous tenant moved out) is Discovery and KRON4. I should get KRON, but it's such a powerful signal and my apartment is so close to the tower, that even attenuated and unamplified, it overloads the tuner. Otherwise, OTA is better in every respect.

At least in San Diego you get ~150 channels of mindless shit instead of the ~50 channels of mindless shit your brother gets where he lives.