Photographer
rxz
Posts: 1092
Glen Ellyn, Illinois, US
Since May I've taken 2 vacation trips totaling 21 days and stayed in various motels with cable TV. I'm old style with an antenna on my roof and watch free TV at home. I never believed in cable or the associated cost. As I recall the idea of cable was to get rid of product advertising and just watch the programs. The cable channels I was watching on vacation were loaded with commercials. I still don't believe in cable. And I have no desire to pay to watch commercials.
Clothing Designer
GRMACK
Posts: 5436
Bakersfield, California, US
I also use OTA for TV, no cable here. I did buy a DVR for the OTA channels and just skip through them when played back later. I do notice when it gets really hot or during the mid-day, the local OTA channels and transmitters seem to lose or cut back power until around 7PM when the signals improve. Might need a new long-range antenna soon.
Seems even Youtube has gotten more into the ads of late unless you pay them to get rid of them (Shades of cable TV all over again!). Some are 4-5 seconds long, and others go a full minute. Some Youtubes now have sporadic ads throughout them as well. I suspect some of the Youtubers are signing on for a lot of ads to be within their video to make more money perhaps, but they may lose viewers/subscribers too by doing so and if their video product becomes stale over time.
Photographer
martin b
Posts: 2770
Manila, National Capital Region, Philippines
Netflix and HBO? I get the USA and Philippines version and that keeps me going. Lot's of VOD out there as well. No need for antennas.
Photographer
rxz
Posts: 1092
Glen Ellyn, Illinois, US
martin b wrote:
Netflix and HBO? I get the USA and Philippines version and that keeps me going. Lot's of VOD out there as well. No need for antennas. Is vod free? I've have my antenna for over 25 years, about a $300 expense back then. Is streaming from vod commercial free? My issue was commercials on cable.
Photographer
Looknsee Photography
Posts: 26342
Portland, Oregon, US
I have "cable" (satellite) TV. I have DVRs. The DVRs have 30 second skip. I record every show I watch, and if a commercial pops up, I hit the 30 second skip. No ad, no problem.
The OP, on the other hand, watches shows over the air with an antenna. Those shows have commercials. He doesn't (I think) have a 30 second skip.
Photographer
rxz
Posts: 1092
Glen Ellyn, Illinois, US
Looknsee Photography wrote:
I have "cable" (satellite) TV. I have DVRs. The DVRs have 30 second skip. I record every show I watch, and if a commercial pops up, I hit the 30 second skip. No ad, no problem.
The OP, on the other hand, watches shows over the air with an antenna. Those shows have commercials. He doesn't (I think) have a 30 second skip. I don't. But those commercials have a benefit for me. Refill a beverage, hit the head, wash clothes (clothes to the washer, washer to dryer, out of dryer), check for emails, and many more. I use those breaks. I hope advertisers aren't reading this. lol
Photographer
Looknsee Photography
Posts: 26342
Portland, Oregon, US
Looknsee Photography wrote:
I have "cable" (satellite) TV. I have DVRs. The DVRs have 30 second skip. I record every show I watch, and if a commercial pops up, I hit the 30 second skip. No ad, no problem.
The OP, on the other hand, watches shows over the air with an antenna. Those shows have commercials. He doesn't (I think) have a 30 second skip. rxz wrote:
I don't. But those commercials have a benefit for me. Refill a beverage, hit the head, wash clothes (clothes to the washer, washer to dryer, out of dryer), check for emails, and many more. I use those breaks. I hope advertisers aren't reading this. lol Okay, but with the DVR's features, I can hit "pause" & "rewind" on live TV. That way, my bathroom breaks don't have to be on the TV's schedule.
Love that DVR. It changed how I watch TV. It's almost as if the TV is now here for my entertainment & not my exploitation.
Photographer
rfordphotos
Posts: 8866
Antioch, California, US
I cut the cable (satellite) several years ago. Have never missed it.
I stream whatever I watch on the internet. I pay for Hulu, Netflix, and am an Amazon Prime customer. With that, I pay about 1/3 of what I paid for Directv.
I havent seen an ad in years. The Hulu premium service eliminates most of them, Netflix and Amazon dont have any.... The ones Hulu tries to show me---- are blocked by Adblock. Since the shows are streamed, I can always just skip forward...
Network shows are streamed either 21 or 42 minutes long- no commercials.
I can easily stream live news from many sources- 24/7
I do not see live sporting events... but that isnt a big deal to me any longer.
Once a year, I subscribe for a month to HBO, and catch up on all the shows I want like Game of Thrones... Same for anything I wish to see on Showtime, etc etc.... So I spend 1/12th of what I used to for premium subscriptions.
Photographer
rxz
Posts: 1092
Glen Ellyn, Illinois, US
rxz wrote:
As I recall the idea of cable was to get rid of product advertising and just watch the programs. The cable channels I was watching on vacation were loaded with commercials. I still don't believe in cable. And I have no desire to pay to watch commercials. No one has commented on cable with commercials. Comments so far have been unrelated.
Photographer
Looknsee Photography
Posts: 26342
Portland, Oregon, US
rxz wrote:
No one has commented on cable with commercials. Comments so far have been unrelated. I don't recall there ever being a promise that all cable TV programming would be commercial free. I do recall that there were some "new" paid subscription cable networks (now called "premium" networks, like HBO) that were commercial free, but for the most part, so-called cable TV was populated by local & non-local UHF channels, all of which had commercials. The big draw was image quality that was better than antenna quality, especially in outlying areas. Some of these local stations evolved & survived (e.g. TBS), but again, follow the money.
Early DVR devices all had 30 second skip, so that folks could bypass those annoying ads. Then the stations & networks complained & forced DVR manufacturers to remove the 30 second skip. However, some DVR providers, like DirecTV, have well known hacks to put the 30 second skip back in.
So, in my book, if you want to avoid the commercials, you have a few choices:
... Watch only premium channels,
... Get a DVR & get 30 second skip a-working,
... Embrace streaming services like Hulu & Netflix,
... Stop watching TV.
Photographer
Keith Moody
Posts: 548
Phoenix, Arizona, US
rxz wrote:
As I recall the idea of cable was to get rid of product advertising and just watch the programs. The cable channels I was watching on vacation were loaded with commercials. I still don't believe in cable. And I have no desire to pay to watch commercials. The idea of cable was to bring cleaner, clearer broadcast signals to people who didn't have access to it. That began back in the 40s and had nothing to do with commercial free television. It was more about how can we sell more televisions.
Artist/Painter
ethasleftthebuilding
Posts: 16685
Key West, Florida, US
I dumped satellite TV some months back. The price went up on a regular basis and the selection of what I wanted to watch went down regularly.
One particular time, that made me decide to dump them, they included a "sports fee" on my bill. I don't normally watch sports. So I called and asked about it. I was told everyone has to pay the fee. I argued and finally in frustration, told them to disconnect me then. My call was sent to a supervisor who told me he could waive the sports fee if I changed to another package saying "it is the same price and has all the same channels you are currently receiving". Okay, do it. The next day I discovered that I no longer had the two channels that I watched most of the time. So I called back and was told that I had misunderstood and there was no way to go back to the old package, but I could upgrade (more $$ per month) to get back the two channels I had lost without paying the sports fee. NO! HELL NO! TURN IT OFF!
Photographer
Tony From Syracuse
Posts: 2503
Syracuse, New York, US
except for a couple shows such as Westworld and Billions, I almost exclusively spend my leisure time at home surfing Youtube.
Photographer
rfordphotos
Posts: 8866
Antioch, California, US
rxz wrote:
No one has commented on cable with commercials. Comments so far have been unrelated. I suspect that commercial-free cable went the same place as "electric power so cheap it isnt worth metering"....
(most of you wont know what I am talking about)
When cable was first introduced in this area, its biggest marketing point was the quality of the signal. We were on the fringes of the two major broadcast markets in the region at the time (Sacramento and Fan Francisco) and analog OTA signals required ridiculously high masts with huge arrays to get a decent signal. Color tv just made it worse.
I was young, very early teens, so my memory is without a doubt fading, but I dont recall any promises about commercial free....
At first that was it.... yeah, a couple more channels (whoop dee doo, they were the same network broadcasts, one from San Francisco, one from Sacramento). It was quite a while before additional content was offered.
The big expansion of content wasnt people like TBS or CNN--- they didnt exist.... it was the little local channels--- channels ABOVE 2 thru 13.... channel 20, or 36 or 44 they were big in the area--- showing local content---- and a ton of old movies and creature features...
We had never been able to get those channels here in the boonies- so they were "new" to us, even showing content that was decades old.
Photographer
rxz
Posts: 1092
Glen Ellyn, Illinois, US
Looknsee Photography wrote:
I don't recall there ever being a promise that all cable TV programming would be commercial free. I do recall that there were some "new" paid subscription cable networks (now called "premium" networks, like HBO) that were commercial free, but for the most part, so-called cable TV was populated by local & non-local UHF channels, all of which had commercials. The big draw was image quality that was better than antenna quality, especially in outlying areas. Some of these local stations evolved & survived (e.g. TBS), but again, follow the money.
So, in my book, if you want to avoid the commercials, you have a few choices:
... Watch only premium channels,
... Get a DVR & get 30 second skip a-working,
... Embrace streaming services like Hulu & Netflix,
... Stop watching TV. Thank you for the clarification. I had mostly assumed cable programming would be commercial free or at least limited.
I really don't watch that much TV. And when I do it's mostly PBS stations which limit advertising except during fund raising. I'm within 25 miles of the broadcasting antennas of the major networks out of Chicago. My roof top antenna generally gets as good or sometimes better reception than my neighbors with cable.
Photographer
rfordphotos
Posts: 8866
Antioch, California, US
rxz wrote:
Thank you for the clarification. I had mostly assumed cable programming would be commercial free or at least limited.
I really don't watch that much TV. And when I do it's mostly PBS stations which limit advertising except during fund raising. I'm within 25 miles of the broadcasting antennas of the major networks out of Chicago. My roof top antenna generally gets as good or sometimes better reception than my neighbors with cable. Roof top DIGITAL OTA is a completely different critter to roof top ANALOG ...
As said above- a prime marketing tool for the original introduction of cable was the better image quality I wonder how successful the cable companies would be now- with digital tv signals, the "range" of OTA broadcasts must cover a whole lot more people... If people were accustomed to the idea of "free" OTA entertainment it might be hard to sell cable these days.
The rise of streaming TV may be the tech that finally gets us "commercial free" TV. Now, pretty much everybody who "streams" their entertainment can do what Looknsee does--- skip forward past an ad. If they know you will skip it anyway, companies wont waste the $ to advertise that way. Hulu premium gets their cash upfront, Netflix, Amazon do the same thing. It is just the natural evolution of things.
Photographer
Looknsee Photography
Posts: 26342
Portland, Oregon, US
Looknsee Photography wrote:
I don't recall there ever being a promise that all cable TV programming would be commercial free. I do recall that there were some "new" paid subscription cable networks (now called "premium" networks, like HBO) that were commercial free, but for the most part, so-called cable TV was populated by local & non-local UHF channels, all of which had commercials. The big draw was image quality that was better than antenna quality, especially in outlying areas. Some of these local stations evolved & survived (e.g. TBS), but again, follow the money.
So, in my book, if you want to avoid the commercials, you have a few choices:
... Watch only premium channels,
... Get a DVR & get 30 second skip a-working,
... Embrace streaming services like Hulu & Netflix,
... Stop watching TV. rxz wrote:
Thank you for the clarification. I had mostly assumed cable programming would be commercial free or at least limited.
I really don't watch that much TV. And when I do it's mostly PBS stations which limit advertising except during fund raising. I'm within 25 miles of the broadcasting antennas of the major networks out of Chicago. My roof top antenna generally gets as good or sometimes better reception than my neighbors with cable. Yeah, I live in a ~130 year old Victorian that is surrounded by much taller & newer buildings. The OTA signals available to me are poor, with all the bigger buildings surrounding me.
Another thought occurred to me. Soon after "cable" became available, HD channels started becoming available, and in the beginning, you basically needed a cable box to get those higher quality images. Yes, eventually there were HD TVs & HD antennas available, but for the best, consistent quality (even in bad weather), cable TV couldn't be beat.
Now, it's UHD. I got a 4K TV, but there is so little programming available that it's not yet worth it to convert (I do get some 4K programming via Roku).
Photographer
rxz
Posts: 1092
Glen Ellyn, Illinois, US
What's nice is that we all have options on how we want to view TV programming. I have found that a HD antenna works for my needs and involves no ongoing costs. In watching cable programming on my recent trips of 21 days in 4 different states plus the Bahamas, there was just one program I enjoyed watching - Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. And I can stream her shows on my PC now that I'm home. My antenna picks up over 40 channels. I have more than enough garbage to filter out.
Photographer
Looknsee Photography
Posts: 26342
Portland, Oregon, US
rxz wrote:
And I can stream her shows on my PC now that I'm home. Speaking personally, I'm not comfortable watching TV shows on my PC. If I'm on my PC, there's always some kind of work to distract me. Plus, I can't just settle in on a big comfy recliner while at my PC. I got a room, a home theater, set aside & set up for video viewing, and yes, I've been known to fall asleep in my big comfy chair.
I do have a 4K Roku device set up in my home theater, and there's a lot of free & paid programming available that way. But I'm not comfortable with streaming in general (because it's not easy to search for the programming I want) or binge-viewing.
YMMV.
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