Cable: Why Do We Even Bother

@MissGia (955)
United States
January 3, 2007 7:08pm CST
Why do some people even pay for this crap?? I know tons of people who pay so much for cable and watch like 2 channels..its sick you pay for 60 some channels and you watch 2 that makes no sense its a waste of money. Then you have people who go the extra mile and pay for premium channels (HBO,Cinemax for example) and what do they show..movies from the 80's and 90's from what i saw. I stayed at my sisters one weekend and there was nothing on all the other channels so i went to her HBO channels and they were showing movies that i saw when i was little and that i've seen 500 times. Then you have people who go even further and get satellite and pay for more channels that they dont even watch..i just dont get it.. why dont people just take the money the waste on cable and buy DVD boxsets of shows that they like. So i would like to ask the mylot community: what kind of cable package do you have? how many channels do you actually watch? How often do you even watch TV? For those of you with low number answers: Why do you pay out the Butt for it?
12 people like this
76 responses
@BunGirl (2638)
• United States
4 Jan 07
I have satellite because around here it is far cheaper than cable. I can't watch free (antenna) TV because I get little to no reception. If I didn't have satellite I would have no TV access at all! And my satellite is actually a pretty good deal. We only pay about $30 a month for it.
2 people like this
• United States
4 Jan 07
we pay a little more than that, but we have it on three TVs in our house, but we have more variety than we did with cable. we got tired of rate increases from cable every few months with no new channels being added to the lineup. I also had internet through the cable company, which was really not a good choice...it was fast,but not with the most reliable connectivity
1 person likes this
@MissGia (955)
• United States
4 Jan 07
wow Bun! what satellite service provider do you use, thats one heck of a deal
1 person likes this
• Philippines
4 Jan 07
we have around 90 channels and i love it! i can stay up till the wee hours of the morning just wathcing hbo, cinemax,mtv, and other great foreign channels. its a great way of keeping up with what's happening around the world and learning the cultures of others. i dont watch movies all the time. i watch documentaries and news and just about anything interesting. :)
@Jshean20 (14349)
• Canada
4 Jan 07
Sometimes I wonder why we even bother with cable too because more often than not, there is nothing of interest on (that we haven't already seen 100 times). But then there are nights when there are lineups of shows on which we like (this is rare though). We just have basic cable here and it consists of 71 channels, we probably only watch about 25 of these channels, we watch TV about 2 hours daily (the internet is more of our weakness). Overall I'm glad that we have cable, it's just some days/nights when there seems to be nothing on of interest, but than there's the times when we watch lineups of our favorite shows...Wednesday nights seem to be best for us!
2 people like this
• United States
4 Jan 07
We were paying for all the HBO channels and I told my husband that we needed to downgrade. It was fruitless to pay for channels that we do not watch. HBO was filled with maybe 1 movie a month that was worth watching. The other crap was movies that flopped at the box office or never made it that far. Other channels offer great movies, but with mega commercials and much of the movie cut out. I am once again faced with the fact that we need to downgrade. I do like the cable internet service, and want to keep that. The downgrade I am considering is to just have basic cable, the very basic, and keep our internet service. Internet and cable our our only means of entertainment, but why pay for a cruise when you only want to use a rowboat?
• United States
4 Jan 07
I would LOVE to be able to pick my own channels,. I would opt for the home improvement channels and as well as TLC, Discovery, Sci-fi, my local channels, CW, tbs, lifetime, espn (for the poker tourneys) and a couple of others I can't recall of the top of my head. The rest I could live without.
1 person likes this
@MissGia (955)
• United States
4 Jan 07
i agree, i think it would be wonderful if cable and satellite providers gave customers the option or picking their own channels set at a reasonable price..more people would probably buy cable or satellite if that was the case. I feel many are like me and dont want to buy cable because its a waste of money, they dont want all those channels they dont watch.
@tocika (970)
• Romania
4 Jan 07
In my country cable firms give to the people in the first 6month free cable;so you can see very poor people that cant pay their utilitys,but that have cable and look at movies and others things like this.I think that this is a loose of time,i look at TV not very often,because I dont have time for this.I have also more than 500 chanels with all that your heart can wish...But Tv is only for who dont have to do...More than that i think that when i look at news,where are more urefuly things,and where i am loading with negative things.
2 people like this
@r0ck_r0ck (1952)
• India
4 Jan 07
yea dat sux! i dont have cable tho! hehe! :D
1 person likes this
• United States
4 Jan 07
i don't even watch T.V period. It totally sucks
1 person likes this
@misskatonic (3723)
• United States
4 Jan 07
I have Basic Cable. I watch probably... maybe 8 or so hours of tv a day? More if there's a good marathon on. I work on my computer so I have TV on while I'm working. I watch... hmm. Well, I regularly watch Sci-fi, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, USA, TNT, FOX, History Channel, The Food Network, FX, A&E and SPIKE TV. And if there's a movie on TBS or something, I'll watch that. Oh, and I watch some stuff on Bravo. So I think I get my money's worth.
1 person likes this
@rash219 (808)
• United States
5 Jan 07
that is the some what the same routine i follow....
@greengal (4286)
• United States
4 Jan 07
We upgraded our cable from the "Basic" to the "Standard" few months back. The reason we did it was, on the Basic plan we weren't getting Sports channels and also other movie channels like TNT,Fox I agree it definitely is expensive..we pay around $80 per month! I stay at home and used to watch tv a lot(now I am always myLotting) and most of the time there wans't anything to watch on tv,even on weekends. Now my hubby gets to watch football and I wacth Food Netwrok,Style and of course movies. Atleast we have something to watch on weekends .
1 person likes this
• United States
4 Jan 07
I just have the regular basic cable. I used to have digital cable but when the bill went up to over $60 I said no way. But my basic cable is about $40 and I have road runner with them too so my bill is about $90 each month. My hubby watches a lot of tv so it's worth it and plus the kids that I take care of want to watch the cartoon channels.
1 person likes this
@wmaharper (2316)
• United States
4 Jan 07
We used to have cable, but found we were spending entirely too much time watching t.v. Although, at times we miss it, (and are considering getting a basic satellite package) I find that I have more time to do other things, now that I'm not wasting my time with that.
1 person likes this
@sigma77 (5383)
• United States
4 Jan 07
I went without cable or satellite for many years. I never missed not having them. I used to watch channel 9 in Windsor, Ontario when I had regular TV. It was much better than the American networks. I hardly watch the tube anymore. I have a collection of movies that I truly enjoy watching over and over and that is my TV entertainment. When I had cable, I only watched a few channels. I would cruise through all the channels and not find anything to watch...so it did get to be a waste of money at some point.
1 person likes this
@Janono630 (238)
• United States
4 Jan 07
i have the premium cable package and have around 300 channels. i watch about 50 different ones and the rest of my family enjoys others too so i think it would be stupid not to get it unless you only watch 3 channells and i have no idea who does that. and HBO on demand has new and old movies.
1 person likes this
@Lakota12 (42600)
• United States
5 Jan 07
yes I pay for cable mostly for the western Channel and I get tired of plian old channels they havent got to much going for them,except at prime time and then I have several channels I watch and cant watch 2 at once so tape them to watch later . I watch or have one of the tvs one 24/7 we have 4 of them. I also get my internet thru the cable company. took off hbo and the like for they are so full of bad laungage we cant watch with a 2 year old in the room
• India
4 Jan 07
Cable Its a waste of money. We see nothing over there fresh, new etc. They repeat the same things rotating rotating, even we feel boring but why dont they feel. I thought a lot on this a removed this and when there is a program or cricket then I just link my cable to my neighbours. Thats what I do..
• United States
4 Jan 07
Thats cable theft here and you can be charged for doing that.
@crystal8577 (1466)
• United States
4 Jan 07
We have the highest package threw comcast. I think our bill for it is around $100.00 a month. I do think we pay way to much for it. My girls watch about 10 or so kids channels on it. I enjoy having something educational for them to watch once daytime programs are over. My husband will watch a handful of channels that are only cable but not movie channels. I do watch a lot of the movie channels, plus on demand. If it is the evening & I am not watching a movie then the shows I watch do come on regular tv. I would say I watch anywhere between 1-3 hours Tues-Thursday.
1 person likes this
@babystar1 (4233)
• United States
4 Jan 07
I do not have satellite, but i do have cable.I dont have HBO or Cinemax. The price for cable goes up very year.Most of the tv. programs are reruns.I watch about 4 different channels. Mostof the channels are sports or news.I wish they would put on some good movies once.
1 person likes this
5 Jan 07
hi i think the same thing sky, cable our very expensive but people still pay the over top prices just to watch a few sports and a few films,
@inked4life (4224)
• United States
4 Jan 07
I have direct tv satellite and have the premium package...some 200+ channels...i know that seems over the top but the problem comes in the packages...for example I really wanted the fox soccer channel but have to subscribe to a certain sports package to get it. that package has 6 or 7 other channels that i don't watch....it's just easier to get them all, and it's affordable for us
1 person likes this