The unofficial online home for fans of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

I was wondering how many on here no longer pay for cable or streaming services.

I just got an email saying my ESPN + subscription will be going up. That's in addition to what we pay for Sling TV. I only got it to watch UC football, basketball, and some baseball.

I think I'm just getting tired of spending so much just to watch television. I already use an antenna to get the local channels.

I'll miss not seeing UC sports but luckily UC has Dan Hoard to listen to.

Haven't been on any type of cable/dish for 4 years.

I've slowly been downsizing the streaming services we were subscribing to. I got rid of Netflix. Didn't renew ESPN this season. Keeping YouTube TV. I get Apple TV for free from when I bought my last iPhone. We get Hulu for free from some purchase or other that we made a while back. Amazon is free for us as well but I'm not sure why.

I get Wi-Fi and internet from Elon Musk's Starlink since there are no landlines or fi-optics options near me. All in for Wi-Fi, internet and more tv options than I'll ever need or use I think I'm at about $170 a month.

(10-12-2022 12:16 PM)bearcatfan Wrote:  I was wondering how many on here no longer pay for cable or streaming services.

I just got an email saying my ESPN + subscription will be going up. That's in addition to what we pay for Sling TV. I only got it to watch UC football, basketball, and some baseball.

I think I'm just getting tired of spending so much just to watch television. I already use an antenna to get the local channels.

I'll miss not seeing UC sports but luckily UC has Dan Hoard to listen to.

I have a cable/internet bundle with Altafiber (formerly Cincinnati Bell). I also have the Disney+/ESPN+ deal. I pay roughly $120/month. To get most of the games on ESPN+ you have to have the tier of cable that has ESPN, ESPN2 and/or ESPNU or else you won't be able to stream or replay them on the streaming service (you could take the tier that only has ESPN and ESPN2 but you will miss out on the ESPNU games).

This past year I cut Youtube TV after the Super Bowl and re-upped in August before CFB started. Keeping a similar schedule for ESPN+ as I cut as soon as the last UC FB is aired on it. No one in my house watches either so no loss there and honestly we didn't miss it for a second. Plenty of other content to watch on Hulu/Netflix/Prime and my kids mostly watch Youtube anyway.

(10-12-2022 12:16 PM)bearcatfan Wrote:  I was wondering how many on here no longer pay for cable or streaming services.

I just got an email saying my ESPN + subscription will be going up. That's in addition to what we pay for Sling TV. I only got it to watch UC football, basketball, and some baseball.

I think I'm just getting tired of spending so much just to watch television. I already use an antenna to get the local channels.

I'll miss not seeing UC sports but luckily UC has Dan Hoard to listen to.

If you call up the cable company and say "If you do not drop this price increase I am cancelling", trust me they will find a special deal. I have done it for years.

(10-12-2022 05:26 PM)doss2 Wrote:  

(10-12-2022 12:16 PM)bearcatfan Wrote:  I was wondering how many on here no longer pay for cable or streaming services.

I just got an email saying my ESPN + subscription will be going up. That's in addition to what we pay for Sling TV. I only got it to watch UC football, basketball, and some baseball.

I think I'm just getting tired of spending so much just to watch television. I already use an antenna to get the local channels.

I'll miss not seeing UC sports but luckily UC has Dan Hoard to listen to.

If you call up the cable company and say "If you do not drop this price increase I am cancelling", trust me they will find a special deal. I have done it for years.

Correct. You might have to be passed off to a "supervisor or manager" who has more authority than the last rep, but if you hold firm they will ultimately cave. A few years ago I went through three levels of managers before they finally agreed not to give me a price increase upon renewal.

(10-13-2022 09:21 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  

(10-12-2022 05:26 PM)doss2 Wrote:  

(10-12-2022 12:16 PM)bearcatfan Wrote:  I was wondering how many on here no longer pay for cable or streaming services.

I just got an email saying my ESPN + subscription will be going up. That's in addition to what we pay for Sling TV. I only got it to watch UC football, basketball, and some baseball.

I think I'm just getting tired of spending so much just to watch television. I already use an antenna to get the local channels.

I'll miss not seeing UC sports but luckily UC has Dan Hoard to listen to.

If you call up the cable company and say "If you do not drop this price increase I am cancelling", trust me they will find a special deal. I have done it for years.

Correct. You might have to be passed off to a "supervisor or manager" who has more authority than the last rep, but if you hold firm they will ultimately cave. A few years ago I went through three levels of managers before they finally agreed not to give me a price increase upon renewal.

Yep, it's pretty much a complete flim-flam operation with the cable companies. I was with Time Warner for decades and prepared myself for a 45 minutes phone call with layers of supervisors every couple of years in order to secure "reduced" pricing. I finally switched to Fioptics but the drill is the same.

Cable is a dying business so they're looking to extract every dollar possible as it spirals down. My objection is, these companies all penalize loyalty by using pricing policies that encourage frequent switching of providers. The switching is a pain in the neck so they rely on inertia to carry the day with most of us.

I worked in the cable industry for 15 years. Providing Internet service over the cable infrastructure was an extremely high margin product, the TV stuff was close to a break even offering due to the high costs of content. Voice services were pretty much zero cost to provide and the loss of land lines is probably a bigger deal to their bottom lines. The Disney and Discovery Networks of the world, where they own dozens of offerings and require a carrier to pay for all of them are the primary reasons that these services cost what they do. I stream everything these days and I'm for certain paying more than I need. For example, I got Apple TV to watch basically 2 shows and I finished them months ago but I'm still paying 5 bucks a month for essentially nothing. I'm sure they love lazy customers like me.

Sirius XM is another model that I find weird. Every year I have to go through the charade of cancelling service to avoid paying more than twice what I paid the previous year.

(10-13-2022 09:49 AM)Cat_Litter Wrote:  I worked in the cable industry for 15 years. Providing Internet service over the cable infrastructure was an extremely high margin product, the TV stuff was close to a break even offering due to the high costs of content. Voice services were pretty much zero cost to provide and the loss of land lines is probably a bigger deal to their bottom lines. The Disney and Discovery Networks of the world, where they own dozens of offerings and require a carrier to pay for all of them are the primary reasons that these services cost what they do. I stream everything these days and I'm for certain paying more than I need. For example, I got Apple TV to watch basically 2 shows and I finished them months ago but I'm still paying 5 bucks a month for essentially nothing. I'm sure they love lazy customers like me.

(10-13-2022 09:52 AM)Cat_Litter Wrote:  Sirius XM is another model that I find weird. Every year I have to go through the charade of cancelling service to avoid paying more than twice what I paid the previous year.

I despise their business model. Cable/satellite I've been off of for 6 years now and would never go back. I know people have said that they have still been able to get the companies to bargain but I had heard a lot of what you said that there's no benefit to TV subscriptions and that it's all about the internet so the TV discounts are much harder to come by than 5 yrs ago. I pay Youtube TV 6 years later significantly less than my last DirecTV bill and don't have to play the game anymore.

I'm a little different in that I do track monthly subscriptions. When something comes out I want to watch I'll subscribe for a month or two and cancel. I don't have any streaming besides Youtube TV that I keep active.

Sirius is awful. They basically give it away for almost nothing and crush you if you miss the promotion date. My last promotion rate was $6 and it was going to increase to like $25. Luckily I reupped a new promotion before it hit. I normally wouldn't do it but I'm travelling a lot more and for such a small price I love having it when I'm traveling. I wonder about their long term model though considering they're selling a product that just as easily can be streamed.

(10-13-2022 09:52 AM)Cat_Litter Wrote:  Sirius XM is another model that I find weird. Every year I have to go through the charade of cancelling service to avoid paying more than twice what I paid the previous year.

Sirius always makes me laugh. They say they're charging me $20/month, then I talk them down to like $30/year by the end of the call.

(10-13-2022 09:52 AM)Cat_Litter Wrote:  Sirius XM is another model that I find weird. Every year I have to go through the charade of cancelling service to avoid paying more than twice what I paid the previous year.

Dumb people just accept the increases, we negotiate.

The MARGINAL cost of any one user is almost Zero!

(10-13-2022 04:17 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(10-13-2022 09:52 AM)Cat_Litter Wrote:  Sirius XM is another model that I find weird. Every year I have to go through the charade of cancelling service to avoid paying more than twice what I paid the previous year.

Sirius always makes me laugh. They say they're charging me $20/month, then I talk them down to like $30/year by the end of the call.

They have to charge someone. Perhaps the car manufacturers and rental companies kick in some $$ but seems like 1/2 of the planet is driving around with it for free.

I know it's been discussed ad nauseum, but the key to paying less is getting a good rate on your internet provider. Yes, YouTube, Hulu, etc is cheaper, but as soon as you cancel cable they jack up your internet rate. Up until recently Spectrum was my only option, but now I FINALLY have access to Altafiber Fioptics. I just have to play the game of bouncing back and forth between Spectrum and Fioptics every year to get the new customer internet rate.

*Side note- YouTube TV streaming service launched at just $35 per month in February 2017. It is now $64.99 per month. Almost doubling in price in 5 years.

I've had YTTV since the beginning and yes, the prices has gone up quite a bit. I have two residences though and can use the same account at both (3 concurrent streams) so that doesn't seem quite as bad. I have Comcast at one location and pay a ridiculous rate because it's the only game in town. My Spectrum has been 59 bucks forever and no complaints there. That may be because I have 3 provider peds in the backyard so there's some healthy competition.

I have Fubo TV + Student ESPN+ Bundle (if you're in academia and have a .edu email it can go pretty far) + HBOMax + Paramount+ and Hulu i think is in there (they force it on you with either Disney+ or ESPN). Get the antenna for local NFL games + Student Discounted Sunday Ticket for out of market.

All in all I pay a fortune but I can pretty much watch all my favorite international soccer teams and i haven't missed a local game in years.