“Cord Cutting” – it’s a misnomer. Unless you’re truly going off the grid, no wired internet, no wired phone (you could keep a cell phone since it’s wireless), no cabled/wired/dished TV, you’re not really cutting the cords. The term has come to mean cutting off wired/cabled/dished TV while keeping, and perhaps beefing up, (wired) internet connectivity.
It was about 30 years ago when I first got cable TV. Raise your hand if you remember having a box with a row of buttons with numbers above and below the buttons and a lever on one side – you had to get up and push one of those buttons to change channels and when you wanted the channels numbered on the other side of the buttons, you flipped that lever. I think we got a total of about 25 channels. Bruce Springsteen’s “57 channels and nothing on” song was still in the future, of course now we have 500+ channels (and still nothing on).
For most of that 30 years, after the newness wore off, I’ve felt I was overpaying. So many channels that I wasn’t interested in, so many that I never had time to watch but I paid for them all the same. I’ve been watching the cord cutting news for a couple years and every so often, I’d check to see what I’d miss if I switched. Finally, towards the end of 2016, there were enough services, easy enough to use and devices to bring those services to my TV as well as my computer and it looked worth the leap. I read the fine print at AT&T’s site about cancelling DirecTV and discovered I could suspend my service for up to six months at no charge. Perfect! I could test out cord cutting and figure out if I missed those cat heaters attached to my TV. And so far, my cats are the only ones missing the cable boxes.
In fact, I’ve discovered a surfeit of entertainment. Instead of filling up a DVR, I’ve got multiple watch lists, now my biggest problem is figuring out what to watch first. One of the best bonuses is watching various series on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Starz and not waiting a week to see another episode. I haven’t binged so much as watched one or two episode a day until I’ve seen the entire series. It’s like reading a book, I get to immerse myself in a show like I do with books, wrap myself up in the fictional world but with some time in between to digest what I’ve seen, think about it and anticipate the next episode. Cliffhangers are less of an issue, I can watch the last episode of a season and then see the first one of the next season right away or later that day. During the first five months of this year, the last half of the regular TV season, I let episodes of current shows pile up while I watched other series that had already aired or that aired in other countries, England, Australia, France, or that were originals with all episodes out at once, like Netflix. I discovered some shows I’d missed back when they first aired and had time to catch some I might not have watched when a full DVR was hanging over me. And since I splurged on the couple extra dollars at Hulu and CBS for commercial free, no need to pick up a remote every 11 minutes and fast forward thru commercials, trying to time it just right so I didn’t fast forward into the show.
These are the best shows I’ve watched over the last six months:
- The Expanse (Syfy/Amazon) – airs on Syfy weekly, then the next day on Amazon. I started watching while the second season was airing, I got caught up just before the last two eps of season 2 aired. Third season next year, if you like excellent science fiction/space tales, watch the first and second seasons before then – it’s 23 episodes, each about 44 minutes.
- Shetland (Netflix) – I like British TV shows and especially if they include pretty scenery. This is both a great detective show and great scenery (especially if you’re watching during a heat wave). It’s set in the Shetland Islands (there’s a lot of ferry rides and driving thru rural areas), north of Scotland and the first two seasons are based on a series of books by Ann Cleeves. Good variety of actors, young, old, male, female (not that varied racially tho). Total of fourteen episodes, the first 8 episodes consist of four two-part stories each based directly on of Cleeves’ books while the third season is one story told over six episodes, not based on any specific book. Fourth season began filming earlier this year and looks to be similar to the third season, based on Cleeves’ characters but not any specific book. The third season was excellent, long form story, intricate plotting, lots of good character development so I’m definitely looking forward to the new season. Amazon may have the fourth season before Netflix – season 3 was priced at $17, definitely worth it if they get season 4 quicker than Netflix.
- Survivor’s Remorse (Starz) – This was a happy surprise, I’d signed up to Starz to watch American Gods but got turned off by the man disappearing up the goddess’ vagina in the first episode. I still had time on the free trial and I wandered thru their series and gave this a try. It’s turned into a great dramedy and I’ll be signing up at Starz again in September to watch the fourth season (it starts 8/20 but I’d rather wait and have a few episodes to watch instead of constantly waiting a week between). You can see my other post about this show here.
- Sneaky Pete (Amazon Original) – I love Giovanni Ribisi! He’s the lead in this show and it’s a bit grim at times but definitely worth watching. The season wraps up the storyline and ends with a lead-in to the next season so it’s not too much of a cliffhanger, easy enough to stop if you don’t want to get hooked on it.
- The Good Fight (CBS All Access) – I loved The Good Wife (except for the very last episode, hated it), this show carries on with Diane and Maia, the red-headed wilding from Game of Thrones playing the daughter of a Bernie Madoff type of financier. The nutsy red-headed lawyer from The Good Wife also shows up as does Luca, Alicia’s partner in the final year. Diane and Maia become the token whites at a primarily black owned and populated law firm where Luca is already working. CBS aired the first episode in Sunday primetime and then put the rest of it online, one episode a week.
- Top of the Lake (Showtime) – I didn’t watch this when it first came out but I liked it, it’s a little gritty, very British like in the reserve of its lead character although it’s set in New Zealand. Holly Hunter plays a flaky gray haired new age type that keeps you guessing on whether she’s grifting or a true spiritual leader or whether she doesn’t really give a damn whether anyone follows her or not. The second season is called China Girl with Elisabeth Moss returning to investigate a case in Harbour City, Hong Kong (although it’s set in Sydney, Australia). Nicole Kidman and Gwendoline Christie have also joined the cast.
- Goliath (Amazon Original) – This has a similar plot line to the Paul Newman film, The Verdict, but enough differences and interesting characters that it’s definitely not boring or repetitive. Billy Bob Thornton is great as the washed out attorney and is surrounded by an excellent cast.
- Ozark (Netflix) – Just watched the first episode today and love it! Jason Bateman and Laura Linney are terrific, it’s going to be a bumpy ride in some gorgeous scenery!
Cost of cord cutting – well, since I work remotely for my clients, I can justify beefing up my internet service as part of my business expenses so I’ve got decent speed and I figure I’d be paying for that anyway so I don’t include it in my costs. Also, other than Hulu and Netflix, I don’t keep all the other services year-round, I cancel when there’s nothing to watch and I may wait till a series is over, then sign up for a month and watch it all in that month even tho it may have aired over two or three months, for example, I like the HBO show, Silicon Valley, but rather than pay for HBO in April and May to watch primarily just that show, I waited till July and signed up just before Game of Thrones started, then watched Silicon Valley. This year, I’ve also been able to take advantage of free trials, twice on some services. Showtime, HBO and Starz have free trials in multiple places – Showtime thru Hulu and thru Amazon, HBO thru iTunes and Amazon, Starz thru their website and Amazon, ranging from 30 days to 7 days. So I got a free trial the first time and before I sign up a second time, I look to see if there’s another free trial. But this only works the first year, still, it’s helped reduce my costs and came in handy when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch American Gods (I didn’t), I could cancel before the end of the free trial (although I didn’t, I got hooked on Survivor’s Remorse instead).
The other thing I’ve done is not buy into the live TV apps like DirecTVNow, Sling, Hulu’s live TV service or Google TV. Those apps simply repeat what cable TV does, give you a whole bunch of channels for a flat rate with no real ability to pick and choose what I’m really going to watch. The two benefits of those type of apps are that the prices are lower, mostly around $35/month for their cheapest package and they are month to month, eliminating the long term contracts of cabled/wired/dished TV services. I also wasn’t interested in getting live TV or even live TV with a DVR for two reasons – 1) I don’t want to fast forward thru commercials again, I don’t mind paying (reasonable) monthly fees to see TV without commercials, and 2) I broke my several decades long habit of watching The Today Show last year during the election. I used to do that every day, I’d even record it and watch it when I got up (since I started working remotely, I work more on my own best cycle) but the election did me in, I hated getting blasted all of a sudden with phone interviews with Trump – phone interviews are very difficult for the interviewer to control, can’t put a hand up to stop the interviewee so they can keep talking and talking (which of course Trump utilized repeatedly) and The Today’s Show’s sharp right turn to become a mainstream version of Faux News also put me off.
I do have an over the air antenna hooked up to my living room TV in case there’s something I want to watch live or if some disaster happens. I did find one drawback to cord cutting when my internet connection went out one morning and I had 24 hours without any TV – I could have watched over the air in the living room but I didn’t get that desperate. I did use my phone to connect my work computer to the internet while it was out for that 24 hours (gotta work!) but didn’t want to run up my data usage for TV shows.
So what’s my setup for cord cutting, what devices and what services?
Physical devices:
- Amazon Fire TV, one on each TV – this is a one time expense. I already had the full Fire TV box, I did sign up for DirecTVNow and pay for one month which got me a free Fire TV stick (saved a few bucks) and then I bought a new Fire TV stick. So far, every service I use is available on the Fire TV box and stick. Hulu’s live TV and Google TV did premiere without support for the Fire TV but Hulu’s added it now and Google TV will likely add it at some point this year. Roku is a good alternative too and wherever I say Fire TV app below, there’s usually a Roku app as well.
- Remotes – I got tired of needing two remotes, TV remote for volume and turning off the TV (you can turn on the TV with the Fire TV remote but you can’t turn it off) and the Fire TV remote. I found this nifty universal remote that attaches to the Fire TV remote (and it works with other remotes, like Roku). It’s a snap to program and makes the Fire TV remote more stable, easier to push a button while it’s sitting on a table. Elegant solution to the multi-remote problem, I can also use this universal remote to switch to over the air or to other devices like a DVD player (you’d need the DVD player remote too).
Services and apps (all prices monthly without sales tax, all commercial free, paying extra if necessary):
- Amazon Prime ($0) – I already had this for free shipping so I don’t count it in my costs, I figure that now I’m watching Prime shows and movies and Amazon Original series, I’m getting more value for my free shipping cost.
- Hulu ($12) – I keep this on all year, I use it the most during the regular broadcast season, September thru May but there’s a few shows in the summer I like to watch too. Although I’m down to two shows this summer on Hulu, it would have been better to cancel it till September and catch up with those shows then – next summer I’ll keep a closer eye on what I want to watch. Hulu has recently announced they’re getting a whole bunch of Fox shows tho so there may be more to watch next summer. One continuing gripe I have is that if auto-play is on, when it gets to the end of the most recent episode of a show, it’ll want to play some other random show, but not something that’s in your watch list. That problem is abated by being able to turn off auto-play – but you do have to do on each device, TV, computer, phone, etc. and the recent big app update reset auto-play to on. Their sorting of the watch list was great until this last update (July 2017) – it used to always move shows with new unwatched episodes to the front of your watch list, that was so helpful during the season but now it appears to have stopped doing that. I’m hoping Hulu will turn that feature back on again, especially since they now designate shows with new unwatched episodes with a tiny marker instead of the green “new” box that was highly visible.
- Netflix ($10) – I had this before I cut the cord but I do watch it a lot more now so I count it as part of my costs now. I keep it on all year-round both for their original series, movies and catching up on older series I missed.
- CBS All Access ($10) – CBS pulled their shows from Hulu several years ago and launched their own service. It’s got some quirks – they don’t have any of the previous seasons of The Big Bang Theory and they only keep about seven of the current season episodes and it’s not even the most recent seven, they’ll keep two or three episodes from earlier in the season and then keep the most recent four or five episodes. Very odd and annoying. They do have a big catalog of old shows BUT the episodes don’t play in order! For example, I watched Scorpion when it first came out and then dropped it because of conflicts with other shows at the same time period. When I signed up for CBS All Access, I thought hey, great, I’ll catch up on Scorpion! I watched the first episode and then it immediately went to the most recent episode in the third season. I manually went to the second episode and when it ended, it went to another third season episode! What??? CBS support told me that’s how it works, nothing plays in sequence, everything out of order. That’s not completely true, when watching the seven Big Bang Theory episodes, they do play in order, wrapping around to the oldest after the newest and when watching recent episodes of newer shows, catching up on several weeks, it will automatically go to the next new episode. There’s also no way to turn off auto-play. Since most of what I watch on CBS is during the regular fall/winter season, I turn it off in the summer.
- HBONow ($15) – I turn this on for Game of Thrones, gotta watch that show as it airs! There’s Westworld this fall but I might turn it off till December and then watch it and a couple other new shows that look interesting. It’s enough of a higher price that I try to keep it limited to six months of the year.
- Showtime ($9) – I watch Episodes here but it’s the last season so that leaves just the China Girl (Top of the Lake second season). I keep this off most of the year, only turning it on for a couple months.
- Starz ($9) – So far I only have one show to watch here, Survivor’s Remorse so this will be off most of the year.
- Acorn thru Amazon Channels ($5) – Mainly British TV shows, drama, comedy, documentaries. I’ve had this on all year but I haven’t been watching it much, I should probably turn it off for awhile till there’s a show I want to see.
- Britbox ($7) – I turned it on too because I like British shows but haven’t really watched anything, I’ll be turning it off this month. Good option tho to see BBC shows that don’t make it to other services I use.
- CW (free) and NBC.com (free) – these are both free with commercials and no pay/commercial free options. I was watching The 100 on CW before cutting the cord and CW shows them for free, available on their website and in their app on Fire TV but they also release the most recent season very quickly to Netflix without commercials so I’m planning to watch there instead. Most NBC shows are on Hulu, commercial free, with the exception of The Blacklist so last season I watched it on NBC (available on their website and their app on Fire TV). I’ve since decided it’s jumped the shark and am not watching it anymore. If I do ever feel the urge to watch The Today Show again or their evening news, it’s available on their website with a one day delay.
- Amazon Video (varies by show) – there are four current shows, Major Crimes, Suits, Younger and The Expanse, that I can’t get on any of the other services listed above, they air on TNT, USA, TVLand and Syfy and they don’t offer them even with commercials on their own websites, only thru Fire TV apps if you have cable/wire/dish subscription. My options are to pay for DirecTVNow or Sling or one of the other live TV services or pay per season at Amazon Video. When I looked at the months each aired in (Major Crimes, Suits and Younger in the summer, The Expanse in the winter) and added up the monthly costs – plus I’d have to watch commercials or fast forward if I paid extra for DVR – it came out cheaper to pay roughly $100 for commercial free seasons on Amazon Video vs paying for six months of live TV at a minimum of $30/month. This is something I’ll assess each year as there may be more shows I want to watch on those channels which would push my Amazon Video cost up. But the commercial free feature of Amazon Video would weigh into the cost/benefit assessment.
The resulting annual cost? I’m paying a minimum of $22/month year-round, adding on $10/month for CBS during the broadcast TV season plus an extra $33/month for extra services (HBO, Showtime, Starz) during two to four months of the year plus $100/year for the four shows on Amazon Video. That totals up to about $550/year, compared to my DirecTV wired payments (at the cheapest level of service that DirecTV offered and no premium channels) that totaled $1,200/year. I had a one time cost of $270 for the physical devices (boxes and universal remotes) but did save a couple months on the extra services and I bought the Amazon Fire TV box and one stick in prior years, making my first year total cost $700, saving $500. Future years will be better, I’ll be closer to $600/year.
The bonus? I finally feel like I’m getting value for my money, getting to watch what I want to watch, the way I want to watch it (on computer or TV and no commercials) and the ability to turn off any given service at any time. I haven’t missed live TV at all and I’ve found new, better quality shows to watch.
