To Cable TV or Not to Cable TV

Last week I called Comcast and requested that they downgrade my cable television service from the Digital Classic package to broadcast channels only. This is a rather fun conversation to have with the Comcast folks. Their procedure seems to require that they escalate the call at least twice to give a couple of supervisors a chance to talk the caller out of this decision. Despite their efforts, I prevailed and the service has been downgraded. This downgrade will save us about $50/mo.

Gone are the satellite channels and the on-demand service. What remains are just the channels that I would be able to receive with an antenna, if I had a desire to put one on my house. The trick now will be to adjust my viewing habits to the remaining service.

My first trial was making it through the first round of the baseball playoffs. This year the games were broadcast on TBS only, which is not part of the service package that I currently have access to. I had to rely on the radio and the pitch by pitch updates on my phone to follow the progress of the Red Sox. For the next round of the playoffs, I will likely be seeking out a neighborhood bar.

For my other TV viewing needs, I have been looking towards Hulu.com. Hulu has a large quantity of television series available on-demand. Thus far I have worked my way through the first few episodes of ‘Fringe’ and have caught up on a couple of episodes of ‘Bones’ that I missed.

The interesting thing here is that you cannot just flip through channels. After choosing a program, you have to wait a minute for it to start and then enjoy the program. Hulu does have ads, but I cannot say that I mind watching four 30-second spots over the course of a 45 minute show when I would have to endure 15 minutes of ads if I was watching it on TV.

My ultimate goal here is to actually start reading a bit more and maybe visit the town library from time to time, but I have to say that it is nice to be able to look to the internet to help wean me from my tv habit.