Cutting the cable

After much deliberation, I finally did something I probably should have done long ago: I had my "expanded tier" cable service shut off, keeping only the basic service (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, and PBS).

I've never been much into series television, at least not since the Star Trek franchise petered out with the cancellation of Enterprise. Since then, Battlestar Galactica is the only show that piqued my interest, and then only sometime in season 3, after reading many weekly reviews from Dr. Heimlich. Aside from that, my viewing has been pretty much limited to Home & Garden Television and The Weather Channel. I would go weeks without ever turning the TV on.

Was this worth $40 a month? My budget says no. And so, as of today, most of the channels look kinda like the photo above. I'd have shut it off entirely and saved the 15 bucks that basic service costs (I only tune in one of the local channels to look for storm closings), except I would have saved only half that because there's an $8 discount on the broadband connection when it's bundled with cable TV. So, I'll still be able to watch the storm closings, assuming that I will even care, which I probably won't as long as I'm not working.

Will I miss it? Doubtful; I mean, look, after about the third time you've watched Jim Cantore getting soaked and trying not to get blown away in a hurricane, you really don't need to see it again, and if I want to see the weather radar or a 5-day forecast, I can get it on Weather.com, even on my smart phone. As for HGTV, many of the shows I used to enjoy there have disappeared, and now the channel sports an endless string of variations on a handful of themes (couple tries to buy house; couple tries to sell house; couple botches a DIY job and has to be bailed out...).

Of course, the customer service rep warned me that, while shutting it off was free, there will be a $25 fee to get it turned back on should I change my mind. That wasn't much of a deterrent, seeing as I'd only have to leave it off for a month to more than break even.

I figure that if I should decide I want to watch anything on the cable channels, I can either find it online, or wait for it to come out on DVD. (The only thing I actually would be interested in watching right now is A Game of Thrones, and that's on HBO, which I never had anyway.) I might even reactivate my NetFlix subscription, which is a helluva lot cheaper than expanded cable.