In the past 10 years people have been moving away from Traditional Pay Cable and Dish Television and moving to Paid Streaming Options and the reasons for this can be many. Some people are on the go and like to watch content from their devices. Others like the option of watching marathons of a television show all at once and yet some other people just can’t stand watching the advertising that plays on most of these networks.
Now I get it about the Commercials some of them can be extremely depressing or not relevant to you in any way. How many ads from the same medicare provider do you have to see? However before Cable, Dish and Streaming there were standards for commercials that didn’t allow for most of them to be broadcast over the air on antenna broadcast networks. Lawyers, Doctors and Others were just completely banned from Television Advertising.
What are the Statistics for Paid Television Viewers?
Traditional Cable/Dish Subscriptions have fallen from 76% in 2015 to 56% in 2021 However this does not mean they have stopped paying for content.
AS OF 2023
89% of American Homes have PAID TV Streaming
56% of American Homes have Traditional PAID CableTV or Dish
While it is older generations holding on to Traditional Cable and Dish subscriptions they are also supplementing those subscriptions with forms of paid streaming. Whether it is the 78% of Americans that have Netflix or Amazon Prime or others that choose from a variety of other services the payments continue but the checks are made out to another company.
What Can You Do To Keep Most Of What You Want But Stop Paying?
This is the problem if you want to keep everything then you will need to pay. Either you pay your Cable TV Company or a Streaming Company. You have to make the decision to give up some of that content in exchange for losing a $1,200 Bill every year or more.
The first and best option is to get a TV Antenna.
Depending on where you are located you can probably pick up anywhere from a couple dozen stations to over 100 stations for free over Antenna. I happen to live between two broadcast areas so with some effort I get over 100 stations with some duplicates. The duplicates can actually be a benefit though because it often allows me to watch different sports teams and local news or other local content on those stations. They are also an option if you have bad reception because you can just tune to the backup channel.
The second option is to Pay for Internet but only use Free Streaming Services
Now free doesn’t mean illegal and I strongly suggest you stay away from any type of service that is questionable. But there are a ton of free services out there that you can get right off a Roku or other TV box option or that you can watch from your phone or computer for free.
These services offer free live television and on demand movies and tv shows for absolutely free and that includes not paying for Amazon Prime to use Prime TV services.
The drawback is they don’t have everything and they can have interfaces that are slightly more difficult than the average Cable TV remote. For people over 75 they probably aren’t an option but for those older adults you can get a TV Antenna and still have that up down remote navigation option that is super easy.
What Antenna Should I Buy For My Home?
Getting the right antenna really matters. In years past Broadcast TV had VHF and UHF Stations as high as channel 69. Today those real frequencies have been sold off to Cellphone Providers so only from channel 2 to 36 are available. BUT YOU SAID I CAN GET A HUNDRED CHANNELS FREE yes thats right you can because previously each broadcast channel could only broadcast 1 television stream at a time. Today each channel can broadcast up to about 9 stations depending on the quality of video they broadcast. So channel 17 in your area might have two streams of 1080i and four channels of 640i video broadcasting at the same time and instead of being channel 17 they will be Channel 17, 31, 38, 42, and so on.
Because of this you need a VHF / UHF antenna. The cheapest one would be a Rabbit Ears Antenna with a circular loop for UHF and you can probably get that for $15. The most expensive would be a ten foot antenna that you stick on your roof for about $150 and I have two of those I got at a really good discount.
You might also need an amplifier to bring in weaker signals but if you have a lot of strong stations you can’t use an amplifier to just amplify the weak ones. TV Tuners will crash at about 100db of signal strength so if you have a Antenna that gets you 15db and 30db amplifier then you want to make sure your local signals are below 40-50db. If most of them are above 40db then you won’t need an amplifier to receive them. So remember that an antenna with an Amplifier can sometimes make your TV Tuner crash and you won’t get any stations. If you replace it with or remove the amp you might just be fine.
This takes a little big of experimenting but you can ask your neighbors or drive around your area and see if there are antennas on roofs or a dedicated pole outside of homes. If there are it might mean you will need the same setup.
Another thing is 4K TV is already being broadcast over antenna so it is normally going to be better quality than any streaming or paid option of local broadcasts.
Final Note
Paid TV Subscriptions whether they are traditional Dish and Cable or whether they are streaming options all take money from your pocket.
If you are Watching this weeks Hells Kitchen or live NASCAR or something that is available over Antenna and you decide to watch that over a paid service. Then you will be watching all of the commercials just like Antenna Users but you will be paying for it.
Free Streaming options out there are really good now. I watch a mixture of different free services on my Roku from PlutoTV, Tubi, Peacock and Free YouTube to watch everything on YouTube that you can on every other device.
Honestly i probably watch more creators on YouTube on the average day than Anything else except Antenna TV which i will often just leave on throughout the day on a Weather Channel or maybe DEFY for a marathon of shows.
There are a lot of options out there but paying is always paying.
Even if you can afford Cable, Dish, Paid Streaming if you can save enough money to cover your insurance cost or at least a big chunk of it or maybe a half year of water bills or something else then why not just get the antenna and take a weekend and favorite all the best Free TV and Movie Offerings and see if you can get through a week without crying for Pay TV and if you can then make the change.
Its not just that you are saving money but its the fact that the providers of pay content either need to make product that is so amazing you can’t do without it and it is a value to buy or that you stop paying them for a hundred stations of reruns from the 1990’s.
Maybe they will get the idea that they need to step up the game and lower prices too or lose their customers.