As many of you know, I’ve been debating over the past couple of months whether or not to cancel cable. If you really think about it, is TV really all that necessary? No…it’s not.

One of the large motivators is money. I can free up about $60-70 per month by canceling. That’s $720-840 a year!! I’m trying to buy a house, and that would help get me where I need to be sooner.

The other motivation is simply to watch less TV. Now that a few of my shows are off the air, I’ve only got a couple left that are “must see”…Lost, Battlestar Galactica (only 6 episodes left), Psych, and Heroes (which I’m about to give up on because it’s getting dumb). Everything else is channel flipping. Sure, that’s fun, but think of all the time I could save. I’d do more reading and I bet I’d go to bed earlier (No late-night Daily Show or Colbert Report)

Lost and Heroes are available over the air with an antenna. BSG and Psych are available on iTunes. BSG is about to finish the series…so that only leaves Psych. Getting back to the money factor, an entire season is only $30, a far cry from $720. I could buy roughly 20 seasons of TV shows off iTunes for what I pay in cable TV for a year.

Sounds simple enough, so why the debate? Sports. You can’t buy live TV off of iTunes. ESPN/ESPN2 doesn’t stream video unless you have Verizon, which I can’t get. Neither Fox Soccer Channel nor Fox Sports Net stream video at all. So I’m running a little experiment…

I signed up for AT&T. Right now I have Time Warner, but switching to AT&T U-verse gives me the opportunity for a couple of things. First of all, I got the “U200″ package. This is about the same price as what I have on Time Warner, but does not include Fox Soccer Channel. So I can see what life is like without it. Second, I can’t use TiVo with AT&T U-verse. I have to use their DVR. That frees up $15/month in TiVo fees right there. If I can’t live without FSC, I can upgrade to the U300 package for the amount that I’m saving on TiVo. However, if I can live without FSC then I’m one step closer to doing away with cable.

Assuming I can live without FSC, is it worth $60-70 per month to see Stars and Mavs games? I’m thinking no. If there’s a big game I want to watch, I can walk down the street to McKinney Tavern and watch it there.

Another interesting tidbit: I realized this morning that apart from Thursday night’s Stars game, I haven’t watched TV since AT&T installed on Wednesday. No, that’s not that long, but now I know that I can make it 3 days without channel flipping.

Summing it up:
As of this past Wednesday, I’ve got 2 cable TV providers: AT&T U-verse and Time Warner. In two weeks I’m going to be canceling one or both. I’m leaning toward canceling Time Warner. Actually, I’m leaning toward canceling both.

Comments are welcome

Filed under: General, Technology by Travis