RE: Cord Cutting Acceleration
I moved houses a little over a month ago and my wife was insistent that she didn’t want a satellite dish at our new place. We had previously been DirecTV subscribers for over 14 years. I tried seeing if we could get a good cable/Internet deal from Comcast (as we had also been Comcast Internet customers), but their offers at the time were actually much higher than I expected (e.g. even the introductory rates wouldn’t have saved us anything compared to our DirecTV pricing).
So, we have been giving Hulu Live TV a try and the viewing experience has been fairly good. I do think the DirecTV Now channel lineup is better (as it largely replicated the DirecTV lineup) and we may switch over since that has all of the NBA, MLB, NFL and NHL Networks that I want along with the TLC lineup for my wife, but Hulu Live TV is good for the sports fan that is looking for the ESPN, Turner, Fox Sports (including BTN) and NBC Sports networks. They can also bundle in a discounted on demand Hulu subscription that would otherwise have cost $12 a month on top of it, so it’s a fairly good deal strictly on price.
Ironically, the biggest challenge in streaming for me (and this is specific to the Chicago market) is that none of streaming packages include over-the-air WGN. This is critical for a Chicago sports fan since the channel still carries a very large number of Cubs, White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks games. (This is even more ironic considering that WGN was a superstation that beamed Cubs, White Sox and Bulls games across the entire country on basic cable up until a couple of years ago and now they can’t be accessed at all on streaming sites.) Aesthetically, we didn’t want some type of alien-looking HDTV antenna hanging in our brand new family room with wires everywhere. This is compounded by the fact that any antenna always works better the higher you go in your house, yet our TVs are located in on the main floor and basement. To address this, I bought a Moho Curve antenna that can be placed on a table (and is one of the few antenna options out there that doesn’t look like a complete POS) and put it on a shelf near a window in an upstairs bedroom. I then connected the antenna to an AirTV that uses your home network to send the channels that it receives wirelessly to an app on a Roku, AppleTV or any phone or tablet. This allowed us to get WGN (and other OTA channels not available via streaming) to our downstairs TVs without having to wire them physically to antennas. So far, it has worked fine.
Ultimately, I’m happier with the setup than I thought I would be. We would have paid for Roku and AppleTV devices in any event, so not having to lease equipment from a cable or satellite company definitely saves us money. I don’t really travel very much, but those that do would probably see some benefit from the streaming services since their mobile apps allow you to watch channels largely in the same way that you do at home. (DirecTV provided fairy good access with its streaming app, too, but I believe Comcast was very restrictive outside of your home.) The AirTV also allows you to access your OTA channels anywhere, so if I’m out of town for a Bears game, I can actually access my local Fox/CBS station on my iPhone/iPad. (Note that if you cheer for an out-of-town NFL team and have a friend or family member living in that market, buying that person an AirTV would get you access to the local channels for those games for the price or less than 2 months of NFL Sunday Ticket.)
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