as I see it, with all TV, whether delivered by broadcasters
over the air, via cable, or via satellite is that good
entertaining and/or informative content is so limited.
Several months ago, our local cable operator, Comcast,
offered an introductory deal for a very low price. At the
same time Direct TV had another promotion for an
attractive price. Both of these offers and all of the others
I've seen since then run for a limited time, at the end of
which the charges revert to their normal list prices for the
balance of the time the contract runs that the customer is
required to sign up for.
I downloaded the weekly program offerings from all of the
competing cable and satellite providers serving my area
and determined that I would have to pay over $10 per hour
to watch the shows via cable or satellite that I cannot get
over my rabbit ears. View-on-Demand was extra. That's a
no-brainer. For $18-$20 I can take my wife to a first-run
movie that plays for maybe 90-120 minutes without the
annoyance of 18 minutes of commercials every hour that
interrupt the programs (except those from PBS) sent over
the RF channels.
I can record TV shows off-air via either VHS tape or DVD-
ROM, fast-forward through the commercials, and watch
any programs I want at my leisure. I can't get everything I
would like, but that's a trade-off I'm willing to make.
The advent of digital broadcasting and HDTV has not
improved anything that I can see, so why should I pay
anything additional to watch 3D TV if the bulk of the
program content is likely to remain so crappy and
expensive?
Kent
Discussion on:
Message 12 of 1
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