Do you know what you're paying for?

Are you paying for TV unnecessarily? For many of us the idea to stop paying for TV service is born more out of frustration with sending hundred's if not thousands of dollars to the cable or satellite companies every year.   After all the American economic landscape has changed pretty drastically in this most recent era.  For starters the amount of debt that some carry might lead you to believe that they live in a mansion, but in reality they're paying ridiculous amounts of money in student loans, all to achieve a degree that may not pan out into a career deserving of such expense. Our society has also become inundated with more and more things that carry a monthly charge.   Cell phones are a great example of this.  While the cost does not have to be very high, we've grown used to he cost of having the latest smartphone with a high limit data package might cost you somewhere in the ball park of that cable subscription.   So much money going out each month will inevitably lead to having to cross a few items off the monthly budget.

Often times when we discuss the notion of "Cutting the Cord" in a television sense we start to consider what we'll be losing.  There is an emotional component to the concept. What good is working for a reasonable living, if you can't enjoy a few minutes of downtime with something that entertains you? This is what brings us back to the initial question of paying for TV unnecessarily.  Consider this, on September 3rd, just a few days ago, an estimated 11.74 households viewed a program on one of the 5 major networks for the 8:00 pm hour.  What makes this number astonishing is that this was a night when most of those shows were re-runs. When these same shows are airing new episodes it's not unheard of for those numbers jump into the tens of millions for each show.  If you're watching shows available via antenna like Bones, The Big Bang Theory, Scandal, The Blacklist, or Arrow and you're paying for cable you're essentially wasting your money.   Now to be fair you're probably not watching only those shows, but there are only so many hours in a week.

The reality of all of this is that a paid television subscription covers not only the shows that you do watch, but the ones you don't.  This report over at The Consumerist shows just how much money you might be paying for the stuff you don't watch.  ESPN makes up over $6 of your bill, and based on the report breaking out ESPN 2 as a separate cost it seems like that money is not for the whole suite of ESPN networks.  If you're a sports fan you might be happy to pay that, but if you aren't the notion of paying over $70 a year for something you aren't using might be a little sickening.  Now not all channels cost nearly that much, but when you talk about the sheer numbers of channels available in some packages, it doesn't really matter if you pay $6 or $0.06, things add up to big totals regardless.

To really decide if you're getting the value out of your subscription take a few minutes and take note of the shows you watch in a week, the networks you're watching them on, and how large a piece of your television time they take up.  If that list includes a lot of programs from broadcast network stations like ABC, CBS, CW, NBC, and Fox, which are available via antenna, then you'll know that cord cutting is at least worth your time.  Even if you have a handful of shows that you must see each week that do not air on those networks, the cost of those episodes through a retailer like Amazon might still come out to much less than your cable package.  Many titles can be purchased for $2.99 an episode for HD or for $1.99 in SD.  Even if you bought 20 episodes at $2.99 an episode you'd spend less than $60.  The average television subscription is $123 a month, which by our math is equivalent to 41 HD episodes bought through Amazon.   If you pay at least $123 dollars a month for TV and you watch fewer than 41 episodes of non broadcast network TV you are throwing money out the door.

The typical challenge to this approach is live sports.  With 4 of the major leagues having their own dedicated channels, and exclusive showings on those its pretty hard to get the same experience without a fancy TV package. The upside is that many major sports leagues have online streaming options allowing you access to virtually every game.  The downside is that many of them blackout games that are shown in your region. For example here at CCC we're big Carolina Hurricanes fans, and unfortunately the games are not shown on any of the OTA channels.  The NHL does offer a very nice, and reasonably priced streaming option, but since we're in the 'Canes viewing area those games would be blacked out.  The cost of the rights to show live games is the main reason that networks like ESPN cost so much more than others.

Fortunately for cord cutters, the major networks are well aware that people want sports, and will pay big money to acquire the rights.  As a result you will be able to see legitimate high quality sports on local your OTA stations.  The best example of which is the NFL showing local games on OTA stations, so you'll nearly always be able to see the Panthers' games for free in High Definition in the Charlotte area.  We have plans to further address sports more deeply in future posts, but just know that you have options outside of paying for a big cable or satellite package.

Often times we hear folks wondering why you can't just buy the channels you want.  Well if you're willing to wait at least a day for the episodes to become available via internet retailers then you can pretty much do exactly that.  It doesn't solve the sports "problem" but if you're pinching pennies it could be the way to go.  Only you can decide if the math works out in your favor, but financially speaking it is well worth it to run the numbers and see for yourself if you are really getting the value you think you are.