[867V309]

Full title: Bundled Cable Deathwatch: Sling TV Will Backfire … and That’s a Good Thing

I've said it before: If you pay for bundled TV, you support a major evil in our country. Your choice.

[grania]

I get the minimum cable service. It's up to $30 a month and includes two Hispanic stations and not even CSPAN for news. It's outrageous that I can't choose two stations instead of them being wasted on hispanic babbling. And, I refuse to pay for extra stations.

We'd probably have better TV without bundling. If networks had to compete for our dollars, there'd be less of them and quality shows would become concentrated on the networks that survived.

[Red Badger]

If we had À la carte programming, over half of the cable networks would simply disappear................

[diverteach]

It will backfire but for different reasons.

It’s not viable!

It requires a high speed internet connection.

DSL not fast enough and requires a landline only made viable when bundled with phone service which more and more people are dropping using only cellphones.

High speed service through your cable company is only made affordable bundled with cable tv.

[ChildOfThe60s]

We dropped all cable except the basic $17 package. Reason for that is Mrs. Child likes a particular Louisville station and for news & weather and we are too far out to get it with an antenna (tried).

But with Netflix, the usenet, TUBE+ (free streaming TV, no commercials, lot of choices) we have more than enough to watch. Neither of us cares about sports.

I use PLEX to stream video wireless from my computer to the TV. Flawless, interface is much like Netflix and all the metadata for each series or movie is automatically brought down from the net. Pretty cool. Want to binge watch all 6 seasons of Republic of Doyle? All you need is the popcorn.

TUBE+ if you’re interested:
http://www.tubeplus.me/browse/tv-shows/

Ratings and links for other streaming TV
http://bestfreestreaming.blogspot.com/2013/10/15-Best-Websites-Watch-TV-Shows-Online-FREE.html

[editor-surveyor]

Sling can go nowhere without Fox.

CNN & Co are in no demand whatsoever.

.

[reasonisfaith]

I terminated cable many years ago and never looked back.

[Zathras]

All Fox News needs to do is add live broadcast to netflix and Cable/Sat is doomed.

[Jeff Chandler]

I cut the cord and used a cheap indoor antenna. The reception was awful. Then I bought one of these:

Sky® 60 HDTV Attic / Outdoor Antenna

, stuck in in the top of a closet, and now I get several dozen crystal clear high definition channels. The picture quality is better than the cable was. After eliminating the shopping, Spanish, and Christian stations, I still have 25 excellent over-the-air channels FREE.

I added an account to my cell phone service ($10 a month), ported my home phone number to it, and forwarded it to one of the cell phone accounts.

All that I am paying for now is Internet service.

[John 3_19-21]

Not Guilty!




30 channels including 3 movie channels.

[drbuzzard]

Just bailed on my Satellite service yesterday. Will be going all streaming for my entertainment with an upgrade to my network service. Between Netflix, Hulu+ and Amazon Prime, I will have more than enough time wasting potential and it will be a hell of a lot cheaper.

[harwood]

Roku + PlayOn + Plex Media Server; haven’t had cable in 2 years now; get all the live TV and streaming shows I could imagine.

[fatnotlazy]

I'm gradually getting away from cable. Still have local channels, but eventually, I'll be ditching those too. I mostly keep the local channels for local news, but our channels are gradually getting into online streaming. When they get the technology working well, I'm out of cable for good.

Netflix, Hulu and similar services are primo. Most are cheap — Netflix is around $8 a month. Why should I pay more than twice that for crappy cable?

[Mozilla]

It’s a game changer in my mind. People can get Espn thru Roku and other devices like Chromecast. I found a left wing tech site bashing it last night. I posted the yahoo article. The comments on tech site, which last night were 14, were in favor of the idea.

The big cons are we don’t know the full lineup yet ( I say that people some people claim other channels signed up to be OTT that have not been announced) and over time it will change or other packages created. Since it is Dish we hope that contract negotiations with other channels won’t disrupt the service. And since Fox News was pulled off the Dish then it is not part of this service yet.

But also the software and system might need to iron out some kinks. It won’t be able to record or DVR to the cloud ot anything, but on demand content and replays will be available.

But Sony already lineup it’s own online service to roll out this year as well.