A Year After Cutting the Cable TV Cord

A year ago this week, Mrs. Graybeard and I started down the road of cutting the cable TV cord.  It began simply enough, with researching whether it was possible from where we live.  As I posted last year:

We've been cable TV subscribers since around the time we moved here into central Florida in '82.  There was broadcast (OTA) TV available, but a few networks and all of the transmitters were far enough away that we were considered fringe or beyond fringe for reception: not very good quality without a fairly serious outside antenna.  To get a good picture, and then for the larger variety of choices, we started cable. 

Our cable provider was bought a series of times and in the course of the last six months that we had cable, our monthly charge had gone up twice.  Looking at my old checkbook records, going back to 2010, the cable service and Internet had gone up almost 400%.  By last winter, we had finally gotten to the point where we were ready to do things. 

How We Got Where We Are

Some initial conversations with friends and folks who sold antennas got us to understand it was entirely possible to get OTA television with a modest outdoor antenna.  A few days later, I updated that previous post, when the test results with the small antenna were in.

We get the major networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, a bunch of shopping channels, a bunch of old TV show/movie channels, and lots more.   Far more than we're likely to watch because the reason we started this effort was that we watch two hours a week of TV in a typical week, and we're paying far too much for two hours.  The local news is good for "boil water" or "road washed out" news, but I sure don't trust those national networks for news.

I concluded that update by saying that we were going to research streaming services and try that approach to complement the OTA.  In the intervening year, we've had two streaming services and I'm really not happy with either one.  

To start with, you guys know me - a spreadsheet was involved.  We had a couple of "must have" channels and a bunch that we also wanted.  It turned out the two "must have" (Fox News or One America News and the Outdoor Channel) were the hardest to get while the "nice to have channels" were easy.   The hardest to get, by far, is the Outdoor Channel. 

When we started this,  YouTubeTV had a $35 offer that we signed up with and it stayed that way.  You can see that Hulu offered essentially the same lineup as YouTubeTV, although I think that's the price I entered when YouTube was $5 cheaper.  YouTube, though, doesn't provide the Outdoor Channel at all.  This past fall, when the new season of Gun Stories was starting, we looked into starting a second streaming service with their own service, My Outdoor TV.  It's $10/month (25%), which was painful enough, but they didn't start showing the series when it was broadcast on the channel.  IIRC, the customer service guys said shows are held six months before they air.  If that's right, last October's Season 8 episode 1 should be available in March.  If the whole series has to at least six months, then it will be at the end of June. 

By comparison, a service called FuboTV advertised as a "sports centric" network was $45/month (what we would have been paying for YouTubeTV and the MyOutdoorTV combination), and a $5 add-on package would include the Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel, World Fishing Network, and another three.  We switched to FuboTV when my month of YouTubeTV ended in October.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The good part is that the streaming quality of the video we get from both YouTubeTV and Fubo are excellent.  I'm told you need a wireless speed of about 20 Meg/second and our system typically holds that with no problems.  Our OTA pictures are beautiful, and while we haven't watched the OTA TV as often as the streaming services, it's an excellent backup for hurricane season, should the internet connection be down (which it almost always is).  Curiously, we get one streaming channel (Comet - old sci-fi shows) over the air and through our streaming device (Roku) main menu.  It was on YouTubeTV, too. 

Roku has their own service and more services get added every month if not every week.  We have watched a couple of Amazon Prime movies.  Yes, we're that one family left in America who does not subscribe to Netflix.  OK, that was an exaggeration. 

Another good part is that I expected to need to buy a DVR.  No need with these particular services.  YouTubeTV includes an "infinite DVR".  You record any show you want and keep it until you watch it (I think the limit was they kept it for 9 months).  Fubo provides 30 hours recording.  For OTA broadcasts, I would need something like a TiVo DVR.

The worst of the bad parts is that the user interface could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch, it sucks so bad.  With the cable service, if I wanted to see what was on another channel at any time, I could hit the "Guide" button and get an onscreen list of every channel and what was on it.  With the streaming services, there is simply no equivalent.  If I want to see what else is on, I have to quit the show I'm watching and change to another way of looking at what's on each channel (which doesn't provide the information the cable guide carries), and whether I change channel or go back to the one I was watching it takes 5-10 seconds to change channels.  It was faster to change channels back when I had to walk across shag carpeting to turn a knob.   

The horrible user interface applies to the DVR features, too.  Both YouTubeTV and Fubo do different stupid things to you when want to record a TV series. 

A chronic bad part is the difficulty getting the channels we want, especially Outdoor and Sportsman's Channels (they're the same company, after all).  Everyone with cable TV gets a version of this problem.  Of the $50/month we pay for Fubo, I consider most of it a waste of money.  The only redeeming feature the streaming service brings is that while I may be throwing away approximately $40/month, with our cable TV bill I was throwing away more like $120/month. 

Ugly, or just plain weird, is that the "sports oriented" service we get doesn't include ESPN.  All I ever watch on ESPN is college football, and going through the "bowl season" without them was annoying.  We used the OTA TV more than streaming to watch some college games.  Minor bowls that we honestly didn't care about.  On the other hand, if you're from Europe and trying to keep up with your soccer team or you just love soccer, Fubo is the channel for you 

We're watching the latest season of the Outdoor Channel's series The Best Defense, which should end around the end of March (rough guess - that would be a 12 week season, which seems to be what they do).  Right now, I think there's a 75% chance that we go back to YouTubeTV.  Maybe more options will be available by next fall.