My Solution to Cable
I’ve seen quite a few “I got rid of cable and only use the internet (legally) for TV” articles in recent years and while they all offer great tips and alternatives, it won’t work for me. Why? I’m a TV junkie. I like TV, I like sitting down at the end of the day and flipping through channels to find something to watch mindlessly. I’m a TV grazer, rather than a TV hunter. For the most part, I don’t have set shows that I can target and say, “I want to watch X show right now.” It just won’t work for me. That said, there are obviously many, many channels that I don’t watch. C-SPAN, the Jesus Channel(s), Country Music, etc. But there are also channels that I don’t watch all the time, but periodically find something to watch on - Hallmark (don’t judge!), Spike (again, don’t judge). I also periodically watch live sports, especially during college basketball season.
My solution - choose your own channels plans. I’m sure other people have proposed this with much more thought than I, but someone needs to jump on this. Let’s say you get a few packages to choose from - 50 channels, 100 channels, 120 channels, what have you. Plus your typical add-ons - premium channels, extra sports channels, DVRs, HD, etc. Advertisers aren’t losing money because they’re not getting my eyes on the channels I don’t watch anyway, plus since I probably can’t find 50 channels to watch as part of my package, cable companies can keep getting paid by companies to put their channels in as fillers to my package. I’d also argue that this could potentially help TV networks, because you have a more focused group of watchers to target advertisements who are choosing to watch your channel(s).
Everyone benefits - I get the channels I want to watch without skipping my remote over a chunk of 20 channels and cable companies still get paid.
(Note: I have no idea how cable pricing works and it’s probably some sort of magic voo-doo so the consumer doesn’t know how it works, so who knows if this is actually viable. But I’d pay for this.)
