Original Desmond

Here in Australia, Sport is the only reason i keep my pay tv service

The Questyen

My internet alone is $85 a month but I have 150Mbps.

Koby

Satellite is simply too damn expensive and I'm not about to pay for it and still have to deal with commercials. If I'm paying for something it should be free of any dumb commercials.

I'd much rather stream stuff at a low affordable rate or even free.

DJariya

Commercials are a necessary evil. I know most groan and moan about them, but they pay for the content whether it's over the air, basic cable or even streaming with intermittent commercial breaks. The ad revenue pays for the content. Shows on basic cable can't be made without it. The monthly subscriber fees are much lower than that of an HBO, Showtime or Cinemax, which are $10-15 per subscriber.

AMC produces popular shows like Better Call Saul and The Walking Dead, but their monthly subscriber fee is under $1. They have to get the other revenue from commercials.

There is no such thing is "free" content. Someone has to pay for it. Whether you watch the commercials that pay for it, stream it on a pay streaming service like Netflix or with commercials through the network website or even buy the shows a la carte on demand.

Koby

I know full well why they exist. Just saying that if it comes to pay for it with commercials vs. paying for it without commercials. Obviously I'm going to choose the later.

I don't even have an antenna on my TV and I haven't had cable or satellite in a good 4 years or so. Every bit of the content I watch is through the internet, commercial free. iTunes, Crunchyroll, FUNimation.com, Daisuki, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Youtube, Netflix, etc.

PhantomStranger

The big cable providers are all in bed with the Federal government. Comcast practically had an office in the Obama Whitehouse.

I am on the verge of cutting the cord. The prices for the monthly cable bill and their anti-customer service are clearly being raised higher and higher each year to compensate for the mass of customers leaving legacy cable behind.

brainee

I would cut the cord except I don't want to do without live sports. Unfortunately I can't get any over-the-air reception where I live (and I tried a couple of the best-reviewed powered antennae).

DJariya

Yeah with the exception of the NFL, college football and select marquee events like the NBA Finals, World Series and Super Bowl. Most live sports, especially local teams have moved their coverage to basic cable.

Here in Los Angeles, the Lakers and Dodgers used to have free over the air coverage. Not anyone. All their games are on basic cable. LA Kings, Anaheim Ducks are also cable exclusive. Same goes with our local college teams aside from select nationally televised games.

Eddie W

One of the unexpected pleasures of going all streaming is that it's a mostly commercial free environment. Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime/HBO Now/Showtime are my primary sources & I never have to see a single commercial.

And for the handful of basic cable shows I like, I find that I enjoy them much better via Vudu or iTunes. Not only are they commercial free, but also free from all the screen clutter that cable puts in every corner of the screen.

I may be in the minority, but I have no problem paying to avoid the idiotic commercials cable crams down your throat. I'm glad that services like Hulu are finally figuring this out & offering options.

barelypure

I just put up an antenna yesterday so I'll be calling cable Monday to cancel. I did have to put up one of the long range antennas because we're not near a major city. We already had subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon (which is mostly useless but the 2 day shipping is a plus) and Hulu. I'll be adding Sling for the sports. Most likely the Fox Sports for this time of year and then switch to the ESPN version as we get nearer to football season.

Michael Corvin

When did Hulu get rid of commercials?

DJariya

You have to pay more for it. $12/month and a few shows keep commercials regardless because rights prohibit going commercial free. I believe New Girl and How to get away with Murder are a few to note.

majorjoe23

But even the shows with commercials are just one before the show and one after (which there's no reason to watch).

Michael Corvin

the quote was "I never have to see a single commercial."

I just didn't think that was possible.

Eddie W

Using the services I use, it is quite possible. But then again, I tend to avoid any streaming service that forces me to watch commercials. They are certainly out there, but I'm not paying for them (i.e. Sling TV/CBS all-access).

big e

In the area I live in, I don't think I could do much better TV or internet-wise unless I hopped on the Comcast bandwagon. I've had Dish Network since 2005 (prior to that, it was Adelphia digital cable), but the price has been ticking up over the last few years and I'm not that impressed with the channel lineup. Unfortunately, the only alternatives for me are Direct TV, which I've heard isn't any better, and Comcast.

My internet options are actually worse. Right now, I have Verizon DSL, which I'm pretty happy with. I stream stuff in 1080p from Netflix just fine, I don't have a data cap (that I know of), and I've never had any outages. It's 6Mbps, which is the highest DSL speed they would offer me, so if I want anything faster, I need to go with Comcast. DishNet is available, but their speeds aren't that much faster and I've heard it isn't that reliable.

McHawkson

Any shows from ABC required a commercial before the show. That's the only channel I know of.

PhantomStranger

Most Millennial cord-cutters are also getting much of their content illegally when there are no compelling market alternatives. HBO says something like 25% of the audience for this season's Game of Thrones premiere were not actual HBO subscribers.

It's how they are watching network content.

Troy Stiffler

Ugh. I remember catching up on Breaking Bad using illegal streaming websites. Those places are a hassle. They're as virus-laden as old school free porn sites (remember when that was a thing?). Some links work, some don't. Some videos start and stop and won't reload properly. 90% of the links ask you to download 3rd party software to run the video.

This was before I really understood Netflix and/or Amazon Prime Video. Definitely not worth the hassle.

I think that DVR is still the best option. With On Demand, you usually can't fast-forward through commercials. And streaming online usually isn't available until the season is out on DVD.

Like listening to the radio, watching live TV isn't much fun. Way too many commercials. And the commercials take you out of the show you're watching.

mattysemo247

I pay $60 a month for 100 mbs internet with no caps and that's it. We have Amazon prime (still getting at a student rate and not sure why but I'm not going to ask them). I don't watch much sports but a friend just showed me how to watch some of the hockey playoffs via Reddit streams and thought that was awesome.

Raul3

Almost a year since I canceled TV cable and so far so good. The truth is that at my house almost no one really watched TV. They wanted to have some background noise when they were doing something else, usually in the internet.

But Comcast gave me a promo, Basic TV (no HD), Internet and HBO for one year at $60/month or something like that. That's cheaper than Internet only.

So I have Hulu, Netflix, Antenna, etc. and yes, on some occasions I download some stuff, it's not that hard, and it's not that risky, just do some research.

Eric F

You don't even have to go the subscription route. If you use Kodi there are plug-ins (legal) that scrape websites for free, content. There's a ton of it. Some of the plug-ins include current SyFy and ABC, NBC and CBS programming. In fact there so much free (legal) content available you will never get around to watching it all.

Still, I have Netflix, Hulu and a HDHomerun box for OTA.

Alan Smithee

Then if I wanted AMC, why couldn't I just pay $1 to get that and nothing else? That's the thing that gets me- cable channels nowadays don't just show SOME commercials, they show a LOT of them, about as many as free over-the-air TV does (and sometimes even more I've heard.) Paying $1 per month with some commercials might be passable for some niche channels that could never survive being over the air, but it's just plain ridiculous what it costs for cable altogether and if I pay that much, I want NO commercials. (And when AMC was still American Movie Classics, they DIDN'T show commercials.)

If the amount per viewer is really that low, why not just raise the ad rates and let everyone watch for free, with the commercials being the payment? After all when someone pays to show a commercial, they want as many people to see it as possible. That's how it worked over the air for decades, I don't see anything so special about cable that I should have to pay for it AND watch commercials- and that's how I've felt for more than 30 years. It seems only in recent years that a lot more people are finally seeing it that way.

I eat often at places that have ESPN playing (and I've heard they get about $5 per month per cable subscriber.) Almost every time I look up at the TVs, they're in commercial break. Just where is that subscription money GOING?

The Questyen

That's not true. I watch multiple ABC shows and none have commercials.

Eric F

FYI: All the shows are commercial free through the (legal) Kodi plug-ins. That in and of itself makes it worth watching. Only thing is they're all 2.0. But many of the plug-ins offer 1080p streams if available.