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Rochester Local

Ditching Cable TV

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Growing Up with Cable

It took me a long time to realize that having cable as a child in the 1980’s was unusual. At that time, cable networks came into existence and I was a fan of their earliest shows. Double Dare and You Can’t Do that on Television were favorites of mine on Nickelodeon. Getting slimed back then wasn’t just something happening to celebrities on a kids award show. I enjoyed the earliest episodes of Remote Control on MTV back when college kids failed miserably at Brady Bunch trivia questions. MTV and VH1 still aired mostly music videos and The Comedy Channel (now Comedy Central) featured Mystery Science Theater 3000. It wasn’t until I met my husband that I realized how lucky I had been to have access to such a wide variety of television. Whereas in his childhood home they were watching whatever was playing on a limited set of network stations.

Media has always been an important part of my life. That isn’t to say that I was solely a couch potato, but I grew up valuing the art of television and movies. Nowadays parents debate how many hours of screen time are appropriate for children and there is a certain negative connotation to watching anything over a tiny bit of daily TV. I don’t disagree that kids shouldn’t sit in front of a screen for hours on end. However, I watched quite a bit of TV as a child and I think I turned out to be a reasonably intelligent, functioning adult.

Paying the Price

While I do believe that a fair amount of exposure to media can be a positive thing, I do not believe that we should be paying a premium price for access. Mega-corporations have taken over our access to media and their desire to earn higher amounts of revenue have created a market of monopolies. The price of cable television is simply not affordable for even families with moderate income levels. A typical internet plus cable TV bill is now over $100 per month. Home prices have been climbing, utility costs are going up, but wages are remaining steady. Many families have been forced to take a hard look at their budgets. However, internet access has become non-negotiable for families. Our children need it to be successful in school and we need it to access many necessities. Cable TV has become a luxury many cannot afford.

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A Hard Choice

I decided to cut the cable tv cord about four years ago. At that time I had a 2 year old and a 7 year old, both of whom really enjoyed TV. They weren’t the only ones who seemed to be dependent on it. My husband regularly watched cooking shows and football games and I (like many of you) was definitely addicted to HGTV. When I was faced with the decision to give it all up, it felt really scary. TV was our go-to, especially once the kids went to bed and we tried to relax and unwind. How would we survive without it?!

Of course now that we’ve been without it for such a long time, I see that my worries were quite silly. I would love to tell you that by cutting out cable tv, we’ve suddenly discovered new, creative things to keep us busy. However, we didn’t suddenly become people who read Shakespeare and play Bach on the piano in our spare time. We are still consumers of media, but we have found less expensive ways to access the television shows and movies that we all love.

Cutting the Cable TV Cord in Rochester, Minnesota

So, you’ve decided that you’d like to ditch cable tv, now what? Well, you have a few options:

You could purchase a digital antenna. This is a device about the size of a mousepad that plugs into your tv and functions much like a set of old school rabbit ears. We’ve ordered and returned multiple different brands and styles of antennae without any success. Some people here in Rochester have been able to get a few over-the-air stations tuned in, but we have had no luck. The best case scenario here is that you’ll have access to local network tv such as CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS and local access channels. When we’ve tried this method we ended up with a barely-visible CBS and no less than 12 religious stations.

Primary go-to’s for cutting the cord are popular streaming options like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Instant Video. These companies charge a monthly fee for access to their movies and television series. After ditching cable, we purchased subscriptions to all three (Amazon came with our amazing Amazon Prime account). We bought a bluetooth-connected Chromecast device to broadcast the apps onto our tv from our phones, which has been great. We even brought it along on a vacation we took this summer for when the weather was bad. The kids really love having immediate access to their favorite movies and tv. We’ve also been able to introduce them to some of our childhood favorites thanks to the availability of older programs.

The most difficult thing for us to give up has been access to televised sports. The list of internet-streamed sports has grown miles since we gave up on cable and options are constantly growing. We kept up on the latest Olympics through streaming from NBC and YouTube, which we connect to via the Chromecast. Some NFL games are being streamed via Twitter this season. Our solution to catching our family favorite, the Green Bay Packers, has been heading to a local restaurant. We catch the game while having lunch for noon games or an early dinner for 3pm games.

What Does the Future Hold?

One of my favorite benefits of ditching cable tv is the decrease in time my kids are exposed to ads. We occasionally see one if we’re watching Hulu or YouTube, but for the most part we are ad free. It is a simple thing, but sometime you don’t really notice until they’re gone. No one is begging for the latest sugar-laden cereal. I don’t have to compete with Barbie commercials when shopping for Christmas presents. And best of all, we have seen almost zero political ads this election season. I hope more channels move toward a Netflix model of paying for a subscription that’s ad free. I love the freedom of being able to choose what I want to access instead of having a whole load of unwanted cable channels within a package. Cord cutting has really worked for our family and I hope it works for you, too!

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