Watching TV on web is disrupting cable, broadcast worlds

[Lydia Leftcoast]

63. I used to love cable in the 1980s and 1990s

Here's what some well-known channels were like at the time:

Discovery: science and travel documentaries from all over the world
History: actual history documentaries, again, from all over the world
A&E: performing arts, plus British and Australian dramas
Bravo: foreign films
BBC America: a good selection of old and current dramas and comedies
TLC: educational programming

I willingly paid for those. But bit by bit, they started showing pure brainless crap. When BBC America went through a period of showing nothing but reality shows and reruns of American shows that happened to have British actors, I went to basic-basic cable, local plus public access channels only.

Last year, I bought a Roku. I found that I watched PBS and MHz Worldview on cable and everything else on streaming: Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Acorn TV, with a few ventures into other free channels. But inertia kept me from cancelling cable, especially since I still had an analog TV.

Then Comcast sent me a notice saying that they would no longer offer analog basic-basic cable and that I would have to get a digital adapter to keep receiving any programming. I thought that maybe this was time to buy an up-to-date TV, so I asked Comcast what it would cost to get the lowest tier for an HD TV. It turned out that I would be able to access the new feed without an adapter but would need to pay an extra $10 a month, soon to go up to $20, to receive an HD feed.

I bought a new TV (a 32" Samsung) and played around with it to see what it would bring in over the air. The answer: all the local channels, including four PBS channels (main, home and garden plus rerun, local interest shows, and radar weather) in HD. It also accepted HD streams from the Roku and displayed DVDs from my existing upconverting region-free player with no trouble.

That did it.

I happily cancelled cable, and the only hassle was that they temporarily turned off my Internet, and I had to spend an hour on the phone getting back.

But I'm a happy cable-free person.