Quitting Cable – The Deed Is Done

After some months of deliberation, I finally canceled cable. For those that don’t know the background, I put out a request for some support while I was considering dropping the tube in July. Then I posted some reasons why I should cancel cable backed by studies, and then finally provided a small blogosphere roundup on the issue.

quit-cable-tv-television1.jpgThe support was tremendous, and in August I got the nerve to cancel cable and buy an AppleTV. I still wanted to catch a handful of my favorite shows. To my dismay, my TV does not have component video jacks to support AppleTV! I searched for a solution and found a converter that would allow AppleTV to work with RCA jacks, but that added another $150 to the solution. Needless to say, the solution died.

In late November, the issue finally surfaced again and I was ready to cancel the cable again. This time I was ready to pull plug and even forgo the few shows that I watched. With the support of The Happy Rockette, I called Comcast. I held firm and canceled cable while saving a $100 across our phone, cable, and internet bills. We still have basic channels for reception sake, but hopefully the TV will be off mostdays. I will report back on how things have changes in a few weeks.

If you want to know what finally caused us to cut the cable, it wasn’t just one thing. It was the sum total of multiple inputs that lead to the courage to finish the job. Here is what I think contributed:

  1. Discussing the issue and attempting to quit in July. Without that, I don’t know if would have been able to follow through. It is so easy to find a reason to keep the cable on. I mean, we have to watch that next episode of Heroes.
  2. Having full support and encouragement of your spouse really goes a long way.
  3. The responsibility for protecting and raising our son. Even at 27 months, he still doesn’t watch TV for more than 5 minutes at a time, but we did. Now the TV won’t be on, and I will teach and play with my son more.
  4. A healthy respect for the amount of money spent over the years and in the future. Thousands!!!!
  5. Filling my life with more important tasks. I found that I often would watch TV for an hour or so which caused me to go to bed without something I wanted accomplish undone. Ultimately, I want accomplish the other tasks more than I wanted to watch TV. The addiction often clouds that judgment though.
  6. The Hollywood writer’s strike. It really did provide perspective on how much our culture is wrapped up in TV.
  7. I knew that once I broke the addiction, I won’t miss it.

If anyone else is considering the same thing, feel free to post a comment and get some support.

14 Comments

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *