Finally Cutting the Cord

(I’m a print journalist, so I tend to write feature-length posts. Scroll to the bottom for the TL;DR.)

One of my first blog posts was about why my wife and I weren’t quite ready to cut the cable-TV cord. After weighing the alternatives, the ease of cable, combined with two networked TiVo DVRs (for a total of 8 tuners), trumped anything cordcutting could offer at the time. 

But that was 2016.

Since then, we’ve added a host of subscription-based “plus” streaming channels to our mix—including AppleTV+, Discovery+, Disney+,  ESPN+, and Paramount+—as well as Peacock and HBO Max. We’ve also seen the previous leading contender for our “live TV” replacement service—Playstation Vue—vanish, while both Hulu and YouTube have added live-TV subscription options.

And then, in 2020: Covid. 

With first-run TV suddenly in short supply, we turned to movies (our own extensive library as well as streaming titles), TV back catalogs, and the wealth of original programming available on all of these different streaming platforms. By June 2021, our monthly bill for just cable/Internet had risen to nearly $300. At the same time, we’d moved enough away from relying on the cable/TiVo power couple to consider something new.

That “something new” ended up being the ad-free version of Hulu + Live TV with DVR (hereafter H+) for our main cable-replacement experience. It offered the largest number of the channels we watch, along with an interface that, while not exactly user friendly, was at least acceptable. In addition to the previously mentioned plus and pay channels, we rounded out our options with AcornTV, Amazon Prime, Hallmark Movies Now, Netflix, Philo, Showtime, and Starz, with MLB and NFL Game Pass providing complete baseball and football coverage. (These sports apps are essential if your favorite teams are all out-of-market, as mine are.)

Let’s talk about Philo.

Even though H+ offers the largest number of the channels we watch, it doesn’t offer everything. For those missing channels, we turn to Philo, a relatively inexpensive live TV-replacement service with DVR. It may not have some of the top-tier channels that lure folks to other services, but it does carry the three main Hallmarks (Hallmark, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, Hallmark Drama); BBCAmerica, home of Killing Eve and Doctor Who; and UpTV, home to Canadian drama Heartland. For around $20/month, it perfectly fills in Hulu’s blanks. 

I don’t think anyone cuts the cable-TV cord or gives up satellite-TV service because streaming is easier or simpler. In my experience, it’s neither. The good news is that we’re saving over $100 a month. The bad news: We have to pay much closer attention to the shows we follow, since we can’t just turn on the TV and find all of our DVR’d recordings waiting for us on the TiVo home screen. When you’re consuming 80+ shows, that’s challenging. 

After trying several media-tracking apps, I chose iOS app “Television Time.” (Not to be confused with “TV Time” and a number of other similarly named apps.) It tells me when new episodes of our shows will run and lets me check them off as we watch them, syncing data with the Trakt.tv database (used by virtually all TV-tracking apps). 

One feature sets this app apart for me: the ability to change the series airdate from what Trakt says it was. Here’s why that’s useful: If you’re watching a British show like Call the Midwife (PBS) or Escape to the Chateau (PBS/Peacock), Trakt data reflects when the show originally ran in the UK, which might be a year before it’s available in the US. (Trakt airdates are based on country of origin.) That means “Television Time” won’t know when PBS or Peacock airs a new episode in the US because it assumes the whole series has already run. Unless you change the airdate. Change the season premiere date, and the rest of the season can automatically update to reflect the revised schedule. It’s brilliant.

Although we’ve used streaming services and apps for years, it’s still very early days for us being without the cable safety net. 

Currently, I’m more comfortable navigating all the different TV apps and knowing which one carries what programming. It’ll take some time before the family adjusts. (Or my wife will simply keep handing me the remote.) And it will be interesting to see how we fare once the next new wave of broadcast programming begins in the fall, when we may rely more on the live-TV part of our Hulu/Philo subscriptions. There are some shows my wife just doesn’t want to postpone for next-day viewing. (I’m looking at you, Grey’s Anatomy.)

I’m happy with our choice. Video is significantly sharper and more vibrant now, since it isn’t being recorded to a TiVo hard drive first. And we are truly spoiled with viewing choices. It’s a remarkable time for televised entertainment. And, for us, it’s finally the perfect time to embrace everything streaming has to offer.

TL;DR: By cutting the cable-TV cord and subscribing to a dozen “plus” and premium channels/services—with Hulu + Live TV/DVR serving as our main cable replacement—we’re saving over $100/month while still following 80+ shows. iOS app “Television Time” helps us track all of our viewing.

Not Cutting the Cable TV Cord. Yet.

[I realize I write fairly long blog posts. Scroll to the bottom for the TL;DR summary.]

(Posted November 29, 2016) Every now and then I glance at our cable/Internet/phone bill and wonder if it’s time to “cut the cord.” In other words, cancel cable TV.

Dropping cable TV in favor of online streaming services (and, in some cases, an HD antenna) is an increasingly popular choice. But it’s one that seems to be made mostly by people who don’t really care much about TV. 

I’m addicted to TV. Between us, my wife and I regularly follow more than 40 TV shows, across 20+ channels. That’s a level of addiction that cord cutting options don’t really address. Not yet, anyway. 

Before I get too much into this, though, I want to clarify our situation. 

We bundle cable/Internet/phone with the only local/regional provider available to us in mid-Michigan: Wow!. We currently get every single channel available to us, including all of the add-on sports and movie packages. That means we’re paying around $260/month for cable TV, 30Mbps Internet (their next-to-slowest speed), and VOIP telephone service. 

Until recently, I didn’t pay too much attention to our Internet speed. For the most part, everything worked pretty smoothly. But lately I’ve noticed that when I’m updating large apps on my iPad, Netflix chokes on our TV. Since our downloading/streaming needs are only increasing, faster Internet makes sense. But that means something has to give cost-wise. I wanted to get our total bill to around $200/month and still move up to the 110Mbps Internet tier. That led me to take a close look at cable alternatives, online services that provide something close to all of our favorite channels and programs.

One other important point: Since 2001, we have been watching all of our cable TV through TiVo DVRs, which we own and use instead of any cable-provided DVR. We love the TiVo remote, the user interface, and the fact that we have never once missed a show because of a TiVo glitch. For us, it’s perfect. And essential. But the TiVo unit we currently use is only compatible with a cable-company-provided CableCard. So dropping cable TV also means saying goodbye to TiVo. 

I’ve been most attracted by the PlayStation Vue service. You get over 100 channels (including many that seem worthless), including HBO and Showtime, for around $70/month. You pay month-to-month and can cancel at any time.

You can, of course, watch PS Vue programming through PlayStation 4 gaming hardware. But now there are PS Vue apps for Apple TV, Roku, and mobile devices as well. (Being an Apple fanboy, I prefer Apple TV, but we use both Apple TV and Roku boxes to stream programming to our TVs.) Most channels deliver live programming; others allow on-demand viewing. The problem, though, is that in mid-Michigan CBS is currently the only one of the four major broadcast networks that can be watched live. (All are available live only in a select group of major markets.) That means if we want to watch, say, Dancing with the Stars or Grey’s Anatomy live, we also need an antenna. And even though we’re only 20 miles from our state’s capital city, antenna reception is very spotty here. Worse, an antenna means we can’t take advantage of what is, for me, an essential feature of any TV-replacement service: DVR functionality. 

PS Vue will save every new episode you request for 28 days via a cloud-based DVR. New episodes are saved when you “favorite” a show. You can also “favorite” entire networks, which means that network’s entire content will be saved for nearly a month of time-shifted viewing. This amount of storage is incredibly generous. 

PS Vue offers a 7-day free trial, which, due to a technical glitch, didn’t work for me. I had to sign up and pay for an entire month. (For what it’s worth, I spent about 90 minutes on sign-up day with PS Vue customer service trying to get the glitch straightened out. They could not have been more helpful or friendly. They could not, though, give me the free trial due to an error on their end.) Over the course of my month with the service, it won me over, despite what I can only call an off-putting and confusing user interface

It’s still not our perfect TV solution, though. Even with all of PS Vue’s channels, there’s no PBS, no Lifetime, CMT, Hallmark, or Starz. So, we would have to get some of our favorite shows from other sources, including purchasing them from iTunes, and then constantly track which shows are where and how we can watch them. That’s a pain. And far less convenient than our current setup.

Sling TV is another option for cord cutters that proved “not quite right” for us. For a monthly fee you can get upwards of 50 live channels. The major drawback is that Sling offers  no DVR functionality whatsoever. You are limited to watching live TV, like a caveperson. After 16 years of time-shifting, ain’t no way. (On November 28, 2016, Sling announced that a cloud DVR service would begin rolling out to customers in December.)

After my exploration of the existing services, I nearly pulled the trigger on PS Vue. Nearly. Ultimately, TiVo was the deal breaker. When I explained the Vue service to my wife, along with all of the changes we’d have to adapt to, everything was fine until she realized it meant we’d be losing TiVo. 

“No way,” she said. 

Case closed. Even though I had braced myself for TiVo withdrawal, I wasn’t happy about it. Losing TiVo was one compromise too many.

So, for now, it’s TiVo and cable, and I’m very happy with that.

But the landscape is constantly changing. If Sling adds channels and DVR services, it might be a contender. If PS Vue can offers us live local networks and more of the channels we watch, it might contend too. 

And more services are on the horizon. Just yesterday, DirecTV announced their new DirecTV Now service to compete in this category. Hulu and YouTube have said they will launch their own similar services in 2017. 

For now, we decided to drop our VOIP line, cancel Cinemax/Starz and the add-on sports/HD packages, and return some cable-company hardware (which means two of our three TVs only get Internet-based programming via Roku boxes). Those cutbacks enabled us to move up to the 110Mbps Internet tier while still lowering our overall cable bill. If and when the cord cutting does happen, we’ll be better prepared to embrace it.

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TL;DR Summary: Rising cable fees and an increasing number of competitive streaming options had me asking whether we should cut the cable TV cord. While there are some strong contenders for cable’s money, we’ve decided to stick with cable and our TiVo DVR. No other options delivers all of the networks and shows we want—along with a stellar DVR experience—in one convenient place.