Cutting the Cord (again)

[Eric from Chicago]

I just canceled my YouTubeTV subscription...

To be clear, I've had no problems with their service, and enjoyed the fact we had the ability to use it anywhere -- home, work, and while traveling. It's a great offering. My only complaint is the cost. They've always been on the high side when cost compared to Sling, and about the same as Hulu + LiveTV.

In 2022, I saw $65 as OK given their channel line-up. When they raised the rates in 2023 to $74, that was still tolerable. But now starting in January, they're going up to $83 a month. That was almost the same cost as DirecTV before taxes, which is how I wound up with YouTubeTV in the first place. With taxes, paying almost $100 a month was simply too expensive for how little I was watching.

So after over two years of delay tactics, enough is enough.

My watching habits are pretty narrow -- NFL football five months a year, and a lot of reality TV with some news scattered in.

Unlike me, my wife gravitates towards movies, and never used YTTV the three years we had it, but does use Max.

In the last couple weeks, I've found that most of the reality programming I follow was also available on Max, which leaves football and occasional news.

Before getting YTTV, I'd installed a digital TV antenna, and wired it into the cable running thru the house and formerly used by DirecTV. We live at the fringes of the 35 miles or so where signals start to drop out, but checking today, all of the major broadcast networks I was paying for came in fine, so watching live football won't be a sacrifice.

That leaves news.... Both Fox and CNN have contracts with the cable and satellite providers which doesn't allow them to offer the flagship channels (FNC and Box Business) but they both have alternatives.

• Fox LiveNow (available on Roku as well as online) has 24/7 news with their minor-league anchors & commentators. But they also carry breaking news as it's happening. Today they carried both the Trump press conference and the Madison shooting press conferences.
• Fox Nation also has their network headliner shows available on a delayed basis
• What used to be CNN+ has now been rebranded as CNN Max. The content available there is essentially a simulcast of CNN International, which includes some of their primetime lineup.

So... just about everything I'd want to watch at home is actually available, albeit not in the same app.

With the first month's savings, I'm considering buying a Tablo DVR for the Over The Air programming. They have an app that will allow Roku TV's to pull recordings from the DVR as well as live OTA content on our local network.


Six months from now, I may regret it, and maybe I'll have to sign up for Sling Blue.

Best case, it'll all work out and maybe leave me more time for listening to podcasts.

[Eric from Chicago]

Update.... I got the Tablo installed and running this past Wednesday, and it seems to be doing exactly what my physical TiVo and DirecTV DVRs did for years, but without the need for a paid subscription.

I've been recording some random and not-so-random stuff to test it out, and I'm pretty satisfied with it at the 48 hour mark. The client apps for playback are working great on Roku, Google TV, Fire TV, and my Android phone.

The options for recording are better than what I had with YTTV, in that I can specify recording live sports to go 30+ minutes past the end of a planned broadcast, which should cover most if not all overtimes. I also added a 500Gb external drive vs. the 128Gb of onboard storage, which should give me up to 200 hours of recording before expiring off older recordings. I've got a couple TV series set up for testing the capacity -- NewsRadio, Archie Bunker's Place and Roseanne -- which should help fill up the capacity and give me an idea of the actual capacity in terms of time.

Fast forwarding thru commercials isn't a problem, and neither is the channel guide, which goes out a rolling 14 days.

There are only three shortcomings -- I can't watch thru a web browser, I can't access it outside my home network, and there's no keyword driven recording.

The real test will be this weekend and next with football. I have a bunch of recordings set up based on a series record for "NFL Football" . One game I was looking for -- Packers-Vikings on the 29th -- still hasn't shown up possibly because the NFL hasn't fully locked in the Week 17 schedule yet, and that noon game might flex to be nationally televised. I'll have to make sure I'm checking closer to game time in general to make sure I don't miss one.

[Eric from Chicago]

Today's the day... my YTTV subscription ends, and I'm going cold turkey for the first time in close to 40 years. During that time I've either had cable, satellite, or streaming.

After a week.... I've had one failed recording, due to poor reception for the local ABC network.

I might be able to address that by raising up the antenna a bit -- it's only 10 feet above the ground, and an extra 5-10 feet might make a big difference. But NBC, Fox and CBS are coming in strong, and that's where most of the games are broadcast. Worst case, I can get ESPN+ to watch Monday Night Football.

I've come across a couple other folks who've also stepped back from YTTV after the hike. It will be interesting to see if they adjust their pricing, or if someone else comes out with a lower price point package that has the items I'm looking for.

[Eric from Chicago]

Ugh, I may have spoke to soon. Another failed recording on Fox, which is a serious problem since that's where most of the Packers games are aired.

[Eric from Chicago]

On the 29th, the Tablo went back in its box and was returned to Best Buy.... While I still like the concept, the lack of reliability for viewing a recording or watching live completely defeats the purpose of having the Tablo.

So, I'm back to free TV as it happens, and whatever else I get with a handful of streaming services.