If you are considering reducing your cable or dish bill by going with Antenna based TV then you will have some change in your life. However there is a lot of great free content that you can get if you are within the broadcast area and you may have options over your broadband to supplement your local stations with free and paid streaming options.
Most Major Networks like Fox CBS ABC NBC also have sub channels which buffer in a lot of content you might miss from basic cable.
At the bottom of this How To I will put a listing of the channels that I can get in my area. Now I am lucky but my situation is not unique. I can get TV Stations from three different markets because my home is located in the middle of these markets. Many people have this situation and that is why if you live in California you get an insane number of channels.. other places like Southeast Florida also has a lot but most other cities will have 20 primary networks and most will have on average 3 sub-channels so you will get somewhere in the area of 50-60 channels total. There is a decent selection of stuff to watch.
The most important thing is that you DVR shows because you might really like a gardening show.. but its on at 11am every day so you miss it.. if you dvr it then you can watch it at night or on the weekends.. And you do that with movies and the new shows on the major networks and you will have a lot of new content that you have to catch up with.. and then stuff thats on live to watch..
I use my computer and a tv tuner to record my shows. Other people use a variety of devices from a Tivo or other set top box with a drive connected to it for recording.. and quick point buying into Tivo is kinda not the best idea but if its for an older family member or a technophobe it might be the best option for ease of use… then there are specialty devices like the silicondust line of tuners that can play right to your TV and a handful of other devices like Android Boxes that come with internet and antenna tuners. Its up to you to find whats right for your recording and playing needs and our other how tos cover many of these options
It takes a different mentality and preparation to get the fullest out of it .. then you suplement that with maybe free hulu or other free online stuff .. and the time you are listening to music or just doing other stuff in life and you re pretty golden you don t even need to think about paid subscriptions for your specific area .. go to Zap2it and enter your zip code and select Antenna and if you can pickup tv from another local market maybe 40 miles away enter that zip code too and see what other stations you can get.
So what stations do I get in my location?
FOX
ABC
NBC
CBS
CW
PBS
MeTV
MyTV
GRIT
QUBO
Movies!
Buzzr TV – Game Shows
Live Well – Health and Family Network
Escape – like Lifetime
Decades – Like AMC
COMET a SciFy channel
BOUNCE
ION
ION Life
COZI
CREATE – a pbs sub
THIS TV
MIND
The Works
NHK World
RT News
F24
MHz Worldview
UniMas
UniVision
Telemundo
HSN
QVC
SHOP
TBN
Church Channel
Juce
There are some other stations that I receive but this is a pretty good listing.
Final Note
If you can’t get local tv very well then your cable or dish provider should give you an option to get just the locals for a very small price Check that out because its often not a public package but it will normally be listed in their once a year list of services and fees in a tiny blurb that you can get just locals for around $20 or less.