IO had a thread in the original TPCR about my HATRED of DIRECTV - whihc basically includes almost every cable service. They had a "contract dispute" with Fox that latested over 18 months and then they just removed Fox from our lineup altogether (NO World Cup; World Series; anda missed Superbowl unless you had an antennae, which was DIRECTV's lovely solution - that and a on time payment of $10). During that time that shorter "outages with NBC and CBS. Now they are at war with Disney so that means no Disney, ESPN, or ABC, RIGHT ON THE VERGE OF NFL AND COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON. Rumor is also CBS will go down later this fall...
So, are there any other cord cutters out there? I'm considering switching to YouTubeTV and Philo (we have family members addicted to A&E and History Channels which aren't on YouTube). I already pay for Disney+, Netflix, and Prime Video, and I think two of those need to go as well. Alos looking at OTA )Over teh air) antennae solutions with DVR (like TabloTV). Only problem is I'm back to cable box prices again...
It's getting worse by the day - lost Fox programming (including Fox Sports) over 2 years ago; Disney/ESPN/FX at the START of college/pro football; and starting October 1 DiercTV is INCREASING prices. That's the last straW - HAVE 21 DAYS TO FIND MY ALTERNATE SOLUTION...
t's getting ridiculous for signing up to multiple networks just to even follow one league.
It's like the tighter/greedier these conglomerates grab exclusivity to sport broadcasts, the more they are driving viewers to one stop shop piracy options.
My wife is a cablehaulic. We have Comcast with all the trimmings and it is $$. But, we get everything.
I just go with YoutubeTV and the Redzone Channel add on. Then once the football season is over, I cancel it. I make due with My Verizon-subsidized Max and Netflix (both with ads) for $10 a month. I also get the Hulu/Disney Plus/ESPN Plus deal from Verizon for free (I do play $7 a month so Hulu won't have ads). I get Amazon Prime (with ads) included as I already pay for Prime (which we split with family members). Finally I got Peacock on a year long deal for like $20. So that's it. I pay for YoutubeTV only when needed. It's still way cheaper than DirecTV though anyway--even if you needed it year round.
A long time ago I used to work for DirecTV. I hated all the contract disputes. It was a headache all around. To give you a peek behind the curtain though, often it's not the cable provider's fault, but the company doing the plug pulling. I remember one such incident where there was a dispute with CBS, not because of DirecTV not wanting to pay for CBS, but because CBS was insisting one of their subsidiary channels be part of the subscription. It was a channel with very low viewership that wasn't worth the cost of the channel unless it was in a premium tier, so DirecTV didn't want to include it in the base package. It was a weird deal, but CBS was the #1 network at the time, so DirecTV eventually but the bullet and added that channel. And for satellite, there's only so many channels you can have, so iirc, they had to drop another technically more popular channel. It was a lose lose. Not that DirecTV is always upstanding. No company is. Just shows you that both sides are usually to blame.
Anyway, as far as cord cutting, yeah. I haven't paid for "cable" ever. I got it free when I worked for them. But since I switched careers I now just do streaming. We only pay for 2-3 services maximum at a time. Currently we have Disney+, Hulu, and Prime Video. Last year we had Paramount+ for awhile, and we're considering doing Netflix next for a bit.