Tag Archives: Cord-Cutting

Will you cut the cord in 2016?

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Roku 2Cutting the cord simply means turning off your TV service, be it cable or satellite. You will obviously still need a cord for internet service, so the phrase is a bit confusing. Most people do this by using internet-based alternatives.

Of those, there are many choices — Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu Plus are popular choices. Sling TV launched not long ago and provides what is literally a TV service over the internet, with channels like ESPN, CNN, History, HGTV and many more streaming live.

These service aren’t free of course, but even using two or three of them adds up to considerably less than the average cable bill. And once you’ve purchased a box such as Amazon Fire TV or Roku your fee for that is done — no monthly box rental, none of those minor little charges that seem to get stuck into bills in hopes you don’t notice.

There are some drawbacks, of course. With the exception of Sling you won’t be watching live TV.  The problem is Sling doesn’t carry the major networks like CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox. However you can catch many shows on Hulu Plus, you just have to wait until usually the next day.

So, will 2016 be the year that you’ll take this plunge, or have you already? Let us know and also what services you are, or plan to, use.

Fox Afraid of Cord-Cutters

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Today, over at the website New TeeVee, we learned a bit of info about how the Networks are viewing what is currently happening in the market.  Essentially, Fox is saying that their new “plan” will thwart users by blocking Hulu and Fox.com access to anyone who can’t prove they are a cable or satellite subsriber.  They will do this by only allowing access of recently released episodes to those users and forcing everyone else to wait eight days for “yesterday’s show”.

It seems to me, and I could be wrong here, that Fox hasn’t done much (any) research on their users, or TV viewers in general.  In our household, we are running an average of three weeks behind on TV shows – some as many as 5-7 weeks.  Have we cut the cord?  Partially.  The cord comes back when football season comes back.  It gets cut again after the Super Bowl.  There is nothing we need to watch live other than sports and football is the only one that doesn’t offer an online package….yet.

Fox’s president uttered the following comment:

“We’re concerned that cord-cutting is going to be a problem . . . The more you enable it by putting content out there for free without any tether to a pay-TV subscription, the bigger that danger becomes.”

They will have to take access away all together, because few people today care WHEN they watch something, just if.  And some are starting to not care IF.

To get the full effect, and breakdown, of that statement I recommend reading the article over at New TeeVee.  For now, though, they should know that some of us have already cut the cord and that this makes no difference to us at all.