We made a couple of changes to our life when we moved out of our house and into this rental house. For one thing, we moved from a 2800 square foot house without a garage to a 2200 sq. ft. house with a garage, so we took a hard look at many of the things we owned and either said, “Bye,” or “Into a box in the garage you go.” (All of our books? Packed away. ALL. Except the kids’, who have been insistent that their books needed to be liberated, and so they were.)
Another thing was that we got rid of was the satellite TV.
And despite going with Comcast for our internet connection, we didn’t pick up cable. We have no direct connection to the wide world of television out there. I suppose we might be able to get “over the air” broadcasts (are those still happening even?), but we haven’t tried.
One night back at our house I found Darin in the TV room watching some movie and I asked what it was. “I don’t even know,” he said. “It was just on.”
“That is a silly reason to watch something.”
“Yeah, it is.”
Did we need all of these movie channels? We rarely watched stuff off of them. Did we need the 100s of basic cable channels? Not much. We thought about how we were spending $90 a month on satellite—that’s $1080 a year!—on stuff we just never watched.
And things we did want to watch… Well, there was always iTunes. We’d gotten into the habit last year of just buying “Lost” on iTunes every week, because for some reason the ABC-HD feed in our area kept messing up the transmission. Or our satellite dish was pointed the wrong way, but only on Wednesday nights.
$1080 divided by $30 (avg. cost of iTunes subscription?) equals 36 shows a year. I would be amazed if all of us watched 36 separate series a year. Here’s what I’ll be watching:
- Lost: Final season. SOB.
- Dollhouse: The name “Joss Whedon” buys a lot. The logic gaps are sometimes infuriating and Eliza Dushku is not exactly right for this material. But it’s okay.
- Community: So far this has been hilarious. “Sharks, pencils, and Ben Affleck.” Good times.
- The Simpsons: Yes. Still.
- 30 Rock: When it’s good, it’s great, and when it’s not, it’s still okay.
- Chuck: Of course! Even if it’s on NBC!
- Dexter: A little Michael C. Hall covers up many storytelling weaknesses.
Darin also watches Mad Men (which I personally can’t stand), The Office, and Big Bang Theory (which I’ve enjoyed the few times I’ve seen, but I have a hard time loving sitcoms, despite having three of them in my above list).
I want to watch National Parks (which Nina said KQED is streaming? Let’s get that computer hooked up to the TV, people just discovered iTunes is carrying this one!).
We find series, by the way, following the advice of our most trusted TV critics: Alan Sepinwall (who as every “Chuck” fan knows, is DA MAN) and Ken Tucker (whose in-print stuff for EW is better than his blog, but never mind that). See? Critics are worthwhile, people.
So far it’s worked out great: we have stuff on the Apple TV we want to watch, we can store the old shows (or watch them on the computer, or on our iPhones, or whatever without too much hassle), and we don’t have the lure of just anything being on. Darin has been reading The Lord of the Rings to the kids, and as soon as they finished “The Fellowship of the Ring” we rented the movie. Simple.
What we’re missing out on: Food Network shows. My daughter misses her daily dose of Bobby Flay. Perhaps Food Network will figure out a way to deal with this.
Even if we do end up paying more than $1080 a year—I’m going to try to mark the various series subscriptions in Quicken to keep track of how much we end up spending—on the whole this system is a much better TV experience than watching cable/satellite. No commercials to fast-forward through! No endless promos for other shows! No teasers ruining the entire show before we see it!
Now if Darin would just hook up our DVD player so I could restart the Netflix subscription, that’d be good. Of course, what he really wants to do is get a PS3 “so we can watch Blu-ray disks.” Uh huh. I am the kind of “stupid wife” who “believes that.” My friend Otto also recommends hooking up a Mac mini, so as to use Hulu on the TV. But we don’t have a Mac mini. Maybe the kids will sacrifice their iMac for the cause…. HAHAHAHA. Just kidding.
Since sitting in front of the TV and just watching what’s on is not my idea of a good time, this setup is working perfectly for me. If I want to sit around and stare at a screen for hours to waste time…I’ll use my iPhone to play games, thanks.
We also gave up our home phone in the move. Yes, it’s true: Darin and I no longer share a phone. But everyone knows that to contact him you call his cell phone, and having the answering machine at home mostly served as a vehicle for frustration for me (since he never listened to messages). Now I get everything on my phone and it’s much easier for me to stay on top of calls I need to return and messages I need to deal with.
Dang. We really are living in the future.
I really wish you could convince my wife to ditch both cable and our home phone. It makes such good sense. The only shows I watch on a regular basis are House, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and I wouldn’t mind a day delay if I had to get them via iTunes.
In your “Vanity Fair” entry, I suggested giving up television service and replacing it with DVDs and internet-based media. Glad you took the advice. 🙂
I can honestly say that your comment played no part in our decision. 🙂 I actually could do without TV at all; I never sit around watching it, and the shows I’ve listed above are mainly meant as “spend time with Darin time” rather than “ZOMG! The show’s on!”
Except for “Lost.” That one’s different.