Who needs Cable Anyway?

Recently Bill Arends wrote an entry over at his blog about how the Cable Companies and Television Networks are at war over a pay per subscriber fee to go towards local cable companies.

Bill, in his blog entry, debates a couple of options consumers could take if faced with higher cable fees. I on the other hand saw Bill's take as a chance to reflect on my coming up on four months without cable.

I posted a comment Bill's post and thought it adequatly reflected on what there is to do besides sitting my large bottom down to watch television:

I've actually given up on cable and actually don't have it. There was one reson why, Aurora's (where I live) local cable provider sold out to Rogers. Rogers put out letters asking subscribers in the area to call a special number and transition over. After several phone calls to Rogers nobody could tell me what "Basic Cable" channels were included. I alos couldn't talk to a manager there as they were never available for every reason under the sun. I even attempted leaving my cell phone number but the lady couldn't record that information even after I repeated it 5 times.

I blogged about it under this lable on my blog here:

http://michaelsuddard.blogspot.com/search/label/Life%20without%20Cable

What do I do without cable?

1. Read books - Currently reading Brian Mulroney's biography a thousand page behoemouth well worth the read if you are into Canadian Politics.

2. Read newspapers and do crosswords - Metro is a free newspaper in many Canadian cities and my wife and I have become good crossword fanatics. I even polish off the word search in the weekend Toronto Star or Toronto Sun.

3. Nintendo Wii - hours of fun, nuff said.

4. Clean the apartment - doesn't it need doing?

5. Excercise - Take a walk together outdoors - hark! Actually see the neighbours!

6. Blog - I'm working on blogging more.

7. Save a wack of dough - NO Cable bill = $35.00 plus in savings per month on basic cable. Also means I don't have to worry about Rogers screwing up my cable bill. My Internet bill on the otherhand...

8. Surf the internet - Local news programming from accross Canada is available on the CTV and CBC stations websites. I imagine Canwest (Global) is similar. CBC.ca also has the National and other news programs loaded on a daily basis.

Lots to do, so who really needs cable anyway?

After writing the above, I've further reflected on how I can now sit back and watch the cable companies and networks go after each other on whose going to pay for this new "TV Tax" either the cable companies or the cable subscriber. If consumers are nailed with increased cable fees after this squabble has been settled there will be more consumers like myself who will just drop cable television. Besides the increased rates will only be worse in Ontario once the HST will only incresae the bills even further. Once this happens fewer subcribers will mean fewer viewers which will mean lower advertising revenues for the networks which is exactly the problem the networks ran into in the first place. So let these big Television Networks and Cable companies go at it because again, who really needs cable anyway?