Are you tired of shelling out thousands of dollars to your cable company each year for hundreds of channels you don’t watch? Have you considered joined the growing trend of ditching cable TV? About 16 per cent say they no watch conventional TV and strictly stream online content, according to a report by comScore. Living cable-free is so common it’s been given a nickname – “cord cutters” are those who don’t pay for TV and relay on digital video for their entertainment fix.
Cord cutting is most common among the digital generation, those born into a world where computers, smartphones and tablets are ubiquitous. About one in four between the ages of 18 and 24 said they were a cord cutter. Meanwhile, about 15 per cent of those over 35 said they’ve cut the cord.
I used to consider cable TV a necessity – until I lived on my own. All throughout my childhood we had cable TV at home. It wasn’t until I lived on my own that I decided to cut the cord. Two years later and I’ve been cable-free with no regrets. Here are three cable alternatives to still get your entertainment fix.
HD Antenna
When you think of TV antennas, you probably envision rabbit ears on your old black and white TV set. TV antennas have come a long way since those days. With a decent HD (high definition) antenna you can receive 20+ channels over the air (OTA) in crystal clear high definition, including ABC, CBC, CBS, CTV, Fox and Global. Installing a HD antenna is the perfect DIY project – if you have a ladder and you’re comfortable going up on your roof, it should be no sweat. $100 for a decent HD antenna and $75 for supplies pretty much pays for itself after a couples months of living cable-free.
Internet
A high-speed connection was reported by 97% of households with home Internet access in 2012, according to Statistics Canada. If you have a high-speed Internet, why not take full advantage? The Internet is the perfect place to get your entertainment fix. TV networks like CBC, CTV, and TSN let you stream your favourite shows online. Streaming TV online is great – you can watch your favourite shows when you want and you don’t have to sit through boring commercials.
I know what you’re thinking – I don’t want to sit in front of my computer monitor for hours on end! The good news is you don’t have to – for under $100 you can upgrade the graphics card in your computer to HDMI, purchase a HDMI cable cord, connect it to your TV set and enjoy streaming content online from the comfort of your couch. In fact, if you have a fairly new computer, you might already have an HDMI-capable computer — just get a cable and plug it in! And if you enjoy movies and TV shows, Netflix is a lot cheaper than cable – you can stream to your heart’s content for only $8.99 per month.
DVD and Blu-Ray
Not ideal as a standalone alternative to cable, DVDs and blu-ray are a decent complement to HD antennas and streaming online. Some nights when I can’t be bothered to turn on my computer and search for TV shows online and I don’t feel like suffering through the endless cycle of commercials on OTA TV , that’s when my DVD player comes in handy. You buy season box sets of your favourite TV shows to watch at your leisure. This is great for those who don’t always arrive home the same time every night. The only downside is that box sets are costly – you can expect to pay $30 or more for box sets of the latest TV shows. Another downside is you may get bored of the TV series once you’ve watched it once or twice.
There you have it, three decent cable TV alternatives! With the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission)currently debating the future of TV in Canada, it will be interesting what comes out of it. Even if the freedom of pick-and-pay is introduced to cable, it’s hard to go back to cable TV once you’re a cord cutter.
Would you ever consider going cable-free? What cable alternatives do you use?
Sean Cooper is the bestselling author of the book, Burn Your Mortgage: The Simple, Powerful Path to Financial Freedom for Canadians, available now on Amazon and at Chapters, Indigo and major bookstores, and as an Audiobook on Amazon, Audible and iTunes.
I actually just saw an infomercial for this free broadcasting television.
We just cut the cord (we moved out to the country). No more cable, no more satellite no more $90/month bills.
I put an antenna on the roof and pointed it at Toronto. It’s worth noting that over the air tv signals are uncompressed HDTV – better than HD on Cable or Dish. It’s the best picture there is. You can also likely pull up unadulterated signals from the U.S. if you’re near the border. Hello, superbowl commercials.
We added a $60 roku stick to our main TV as well, the kids TV has an apple TV. So the antenna picks up local TV. The Roku stick adds netflix and a whole bunch of other less useful stuff. And we can ‘cast’ youtube to the tv as well – so that adds in pretty much every TV series ever. Sharktank, dragon’s den, on demand whenever we want.
It’s a shift in thinking to go from streaming a la cable to on demand, but it actually makes more sense. THe TV I have for free is better than what I was paying $90/month for.
Next up I’m going to add an XBMC media server. That’ll add even more channels as well as allowing me to do two other things. First, I can burn all our dvd’s to hard drive and stream them to any of our TV’s. Secondly I think I can save our music on it as well so that we can stream play lists to the treadmill. Not 100% sure on al lthat yet, but I think it’s feasible.