For the time being at least I have a tv but no broadcast signal since I'm not paying for cable service.

So I can only watch dvd movies. Or read. Which I'm doing more of.

I don't know how long I can hold out. I miss those Dodger game broadcasts and a couple other channels. But for the time being I'm enjoying these things with the words in them.

Besides, if the baseball players do strike this year and kill the baseball season then I'll have less of a reason to call the cable company and get hooked up.

Gonna go read Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde now.

So who else is (broadcast) tv-less?

I still get cable, but I've probably watched less than an hour of TV this week. In fact, I took a break from studying last night, figuring that I would veg out in front of some bad TV for a while, and it suddenly occured to me that I really don't enjoy watching TV anymore. At all. I'll keep cable for the college football season, but I don't know how much longer it will last afterwards.

I've been cable-less for about a year now - I only use my TV for DVDs. I can't believe how much more I get done now. Last year I was able to beat my goal of reading a book a week. TV truly is a life-sucking machine.

We haven't had cable in our house for... about three years now. I really don't miss it at all.

I was never one to just plunk myself down in front of the tube and watch whatever's on (which I think is a highly brain-dead thing to to); I'd turn on the TV to watch a program I wanted, and then turn it off again afterwards. So by normal standards, I was very moderate in my TV viewing.

Even so, I think life is much better without broadcast/cable TV. Watching shows on TV forces you to schedule your life around the TV station's schedule: "Oh no, Seinfeld is coming on, stop what you're doing!" Sure, you can tape it, but you have to remember to set up the VCR, etc. After a while, it felt like we were slaves to the TV. Also, I hate hate hate hate commercials.

Now, my husband and I are both big movie fans (go figure!), and we have a great home theater setup... which is 100% dedicated to DVD (and some VHS, since the bicycle racing we enjoy is mostly still sold on VHS). No commercials, hurrah! And we can watch what we want, when we want, and take a break whenever we want. Right now we're watching Star Trek: TNG in sequence (on DVD, thanks Paramount!), and it's great -- if one day we don't feel like watching an episode, we don't. If we feel like watching half an episode today and finishing it tomorrow, we do. *We* control the entertainment... *it* doesn't control *us*.

Getting rid of cable/broadcast TV also completely unplugged us from the hype machine. Now, as I said, we were very moderate TV viewers to begin with -- a few shows we watched consistently, and the occasional movie or documentary on TV. But it's still amazing how, in retrospect, we were exposed to so much more hype than now. New movies -- advertised ad nauseaum -- not to mention advertising to buy, buy, buy.

Getting out of the hype machine for movies has made watching them much more enjoyable. For one thing, what do I care if I don't see a movie when it first comes out? The first time *I* see it is the first time *I* see it, whether it's been around for 50 years or 5 minutes. I'm also able to see and enjoy a movie from a completely fresh perspective: not knowing anything about the story, not having seen umpteen gazillion trailers (in fact, often without having seen anything at all), not influenced by the fact that it made megabucks at the box office (or not). To name two big examples, we saw both Titanic and The Matrix without knowing anything about them to speak of -- just a teaser trailer -- and *loved* them both. Any given person might agree or disagree with my opinion of the films, but in any case, I formed my opinion based only on seeing the movie -- not on being influenced by hype beforehand. (Which, incidentally, usually puts me off from enjoying a movie. The more hype, the less I want to see it!)

Especially for The Matrix, a lot of people I've chatted with have said how they really wish they could also have seen it without knowing so much about it beforehand -- it's a much cooler movie if you watch it the first time without knowing anything about it.

So overall, I actively enjoy not having cable TV. Every now and then there's something I wish we had cable for, like getting the Outdoor Life network to watch the Tour de France, but it just wouldn't be worth it for the price.

Oh yeah, that's another thing -- cable is EXPENSIVE! The basic level is not cheap, and if you want to get movies or documentaries... yikes. For the price of cable, you can buy several good movies or documentaries every single month, and keep them, and watch them again and again whenever you want. I'd much rather do that than depend on the programming schedule of some station to show stuff I'm interested in.

I whole heartedly agree! I get free cable and whenever I try to get ANYTHING done; I always think to myself...I might as well watch something on cable real quick like.

Can't wait till I move in a month or so to a cable free apartment. Never thought I would love the day I get rid of my free cable!

Wow thats an impressive feat. Are you still holding up to that?

I'm too addicted to watching sports to go without cable or satellite service. If not for that, I would be more than happy to leave my TV off except for when I want to watch a DVD. I don't watch a single network series. Not one. And I absolutely despise MTV and other music channels. A previous poster mentioned being exposed to hype. Music channels are the absolute worst ones for that. I actually get angry after watching MTV for about 10 minutes. So other than watching sports (mostly NFL and NHL) I occasionally turn on the news or a movie on one of the premium movie channels (which usually aren't that great because they're not OAR).

I've come to this from exactly the opposite side: because of school, I've been forced to read several books each week (I'm averaging about 1000 pages/week). As a result, I'm left with little time to watch TV. The surprise has been discovering that I don't miss it.

Wouldn't it be interesting if all the networks were required to cut off transmissions for one month? I wonder what percentage of viewers would return at the end of the experiment?

I moved about three years ago and never got around to getting my cable transfered. I am now much happier. I never realized how much time I spent in front of the TV. I still watch my DVD's and the occasional VHS tape, but that only takes up 3 or 4 hours a week. I am now spending more time reading and talking with my girlfriend. We have both noticed a difference in the quality of our relationship. We also agree that TV is a big cause of trouble in relationships. I would like to see statistics comparing divorce rates to the number of hours of TV watched per week.

Not this year. This year's goal is to work on my DVD backlog - about 100 that I haven't watched yet, down from 150. Last year I'd read on the bus - this year I take my laptop and watch a DVD. I'd guess I'll still read 30 or so books this year.

I also completely agree on the hype factor. I used to subscribe to Entertainment Weekly and Premiere and Movieline. I could've told you minute details about which movies were over budget, which Friend was hanging with which Backstreet Boy, all sorts of **** like that. Then I realized (epiphany! - a word I wouldn't know if I hadn't stopped watching TV) that none of that stuff matters - in fact, as ordway stated, it seemed to get in the way of my enjoyment. By stepping away from the hype I'm better able to appreciate all the great stuff that, for whatever capricious reason, the hype machine bypasses and avoid all the crap that it spews forth. I'm also very glad to not have that hype "pressure" subtly influencing my thinking (a case in point: having 150 unwatched DVDs). Now I can see how much it really did affect my thinking and how much better off I am without it.