More expensive plan does eliminate commercials during a show, but *before* many shows start playing they will inject a 30-60 promo that you cannot skip. Drives me bonkers.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Cutting the Cable Guide
- Thread starter Huntn
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
So I finally cut cable out. I can say, that I have not been happier. So as it stands right now, I have the following paid services:
- Hulu - With no commercials, but no live tv
- ESPN
- Disney+
- AMC+ (there were a few shows on here we really wanted)
- Amazon Prime
- Youtube Premium
- Plex
- Tubi
- Freevee
I've been the same way. Haven't missed cable for one second yet. I am going to miss my old setup during the Olympics. I would record them and fast forward through 90% of the broadcast.
I heavily resisted subbing to YT Premium, but it's probably the last streaming service I would cancel now.
I was the same... once I did it... holy cow, just for the mere fact of not having ads before or during a video. Game changer! LOL. The wife watches it a lot now too!
It's amazing how much more interesting content you'll watch when there's not pain involved.
That is soooooooo freaking true. It is pretty amazing!
Same here... can't believe how much I've shifted from "TV" to watching YouTube. Especially once the commercials are gone with premium. I only wish we could control the YouTube algorithm more.
You and me both... But, we are in the same boat... we watch way more Youtube content now than we ever have.
It is t-e-r-r-i-b-le. "Hey, you've never watched one second of sports. Would you like a football channel?"
- 14Feb25- Added PeacockTV info and made a comment in the football section about channels required, to be updated as soon as aI get specific info. Updated Max info and Disney, Hulu, Max bundle. New info in green.
If missed anything anyone wanted added, please nudge me.
Last edited:
We (the wife and I) realized the only reason we had YoutubeTV was to watch football, so that is gone. By next fall, we will just suscribe to apps and services to watch college and pro football on a month-by-month basis.
We do have Hulu and Disney+ Premium Duo, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix with Ads, and Peacock for a year (they offered it for like $29.99). That's more than enough.
We do have Hulu and Disney+ Premium Duo, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix with Ads, and Peacock for a year (they offered it for like $29.99). That's more than enough.
Fox One comes August 21. Football is coming. $19.99 a month. ESPN/Disney also just acquired the NFL network. New ESPN service is $29.99. Finally all of the networks that we place any value on are available as stand alone by way of Paramount (CBS), Hulu (ABC) and Peacock (NBC) and now Fox One (FOX). Will be nice to unload linear programming services and turn the services off and on as needed. Using an antenna and HDHomeRun to stream the locals across the network year round and as the backup We will save about $500 a year by using services seasonally.
The only services we use year round anymore are Amazon, Paramount and Peacock. My wife gets Hallmark in July and October through December. The rest (Fox, ESPN) will be during football and an occasional period Disney/Hulu to binge new stuff. The Antenna solution is good enough the rest of the year.
The only services we use year round anymore are Amazon, Paramount and Peacock. My wife gets Hallmark in July and October through December. The rest (Fox, ESPN) will be during football and an occasional period Disney/Hulu to binge new stuff. The Antenna solution is good enough the rest of the year.
Last edited:
Really depends on what you want to watch, doesn't it? I spend $57/month ($684/year) for Sling with their "News+" package (stuff like CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox, Bloomberg, etc). Traditional cable TV has never been available in my rural location, I have FIOS which Verizon rolled out here in 2017. Never had a serious look at their TV package, I only wanted internet. Just had a quick look on their (very confusing) site and the cheapest package appears to be $120/month yet is missing things like CNBC, CNN, History Channel and lots of other things.
I'm not interested in local TV stations, sports, Netflix, Disney, Youtube or Amazon. Don't get me wrong, Sling has its issues and their apps could certainly be improved. But it's good enough for me, and I don't want any incentives to watch more TV.
I'm not interested in local TV stations, sports, Netflix, Disney, Youtube or Amazon. Don't get me wrong, Sling has its issues and their apps could certainly be improved. But it's good enough for me, and I don't want any incentives to watch more TV.
Not really.
Do you plan on canceling all your streaming services and subscribing to Cable?
You have to consider value, not just a direct cost comparison.
Also, you don’t have to sign up for a bunch of streaming services at a time. Just Disney and YTTV alone will offer basically everything that Cable does, and a whole lot more over cable. And it would be cheaper.
Unlike most cable services, you can cancel and resubscribe very easily with streaming services, often getting a good deal with it.
I haven’t paid more than $6 a month on my family’s Disney/Hulu and in at least the last 3 years. Why are you paying $17 for it?
Another thing, your prime includes a lot more than just prime video. Prime alone would offer much more than a cable sub.
I think your example is flawed as Comcast doesn't include Disney/netflix/Prime and if you really want those in addition you'd have to pay.
I have not kept an eye on cable and what they offer but isn't it more comparable to YouTube tv? if that delta is just under $20, hmmm, seems that YouTube is on the expensive side ...
We cut cable like 5 years or so ago, and stuck to the original services that clearly have become more expensive, but it's a choice.
I do not miss cable tv ...
That's my point, back when we only had comcast and we had all of these channels, it cost X, people wanted ala cart and wanted to pick and choose what channels they wanted. Be careful what you wish for. To get anywhere close to what we used to have, we have to pay even more, my chart left off a lot more streaming services. We're worse off in 2025 then when cable was the only option. We're paying more for less content.
I agree that if you only get cable, then you only get a selection of tv channels, like the food network, and lose out on watching star trek, star wars, various sports channels etc.
Even so, the cost of youtube tv, Hulu + Live and DirectV (streaming) are all approaching the price that comcast charges, and you actually get less channels on those streaming services.
that makes sense, if you're that type who wants (and uses) all those channels, and I'm sure that those folks exist. I'm not one of them. I was recently in the hospital for a couple days and they had cable TV, switched thru what felt like 100 channels and ended up watching nothing ...
We subscribe to Paramount, Peacock and Discovery and have stuck to that for 5 years, and I pay for the ad-free versions, now $37/month (I'm sure it was less than $25 back then), in addition I get ATV+ and Netflix (w/ads) thru T-Mobile, have looked at Netflix maybe 2 or 3 times and have a hard time getting into any ATV+ show, but that's just me.
But you are correct, if you want all of this, you pay more, but imho it comes down to lifestyle choice.
I should also add that we made the cable move after the kids were out of the house ...
I had the ad-free version of Discovery+ when it first came out and it was a pretty good deal. Then they jacked the price way up, like 40% IIRC while at the same time lowering the cost of the ad-supported version. I bailed at that point because Sling has almost all the same content for streaming anyway. Afterwards, I saw a story somewhere (Bloomberg?) about how the streaming services were losing money on the ad-free subscriptions and were actively driving people to cheap ad-supported plans because they make so much from the advertisers.
For me, the extra $3 or $4 or $5 is absolutely worth it to not have to deal with ads. The few times I had cable TV series in hotel rooms, it was horrible and I ended up not watching the end of the show(s).
For as long as it is offered, I'll pay a (reasonable) delta ...
I’m so anti-ad now, it’s hard to tolerate them, as it destroys my immersion.
I’ll argue streaming is better because you have more choice what you're paying for and actually watching, while acknowleging that that content providers are busy scheming to snare their desired level of profits (aggressive capitalism). Is there any other kind? No, not the start of a conversation about this, just an observation.
I can say, after one year, we are still glad we did what we did. My bill is still cheaper and what I have found, is when a particular show is done on a platform, we cancel it that platform. This is usually done with HBO or Showtime. But overall my bill is still cheaper then what I was paying for with Frontier, and we don't miss it at all. We also have found that Youtube and Hulu take up a bulk of watching still.
No complaints and glad we did it. Wish we would have done it sooner.
No complaints and glad we did it. Wish we would have done it sooner.
Its galling imo.
Back when streaming was getting of the ground, lack of ads were one of the major points that they promoted.
The issue, is the need to subscribe a large number of services because he content creator has their own subscription service.
Before with cable, it was 200 subscribed channels, 10 watched… 🤔