While the blog article from Red Tape MSNBC titled “What does your neighbor pay for cable?” talks mostly about the price of cable boxes and DVR services, it seems like a majority of the readers are mostly upset about their high monthly bills and poor customer service from cable providers.
Article Money Quote:
1) Many consumers are getting killed in fees for second, third, and fourth set-top boxes. Consider paying for service only on the family TV, and use rabbit ears to pick up over-the-air HD channels on the other sets in the house. The savings can easily add up more than $500 per year. If you can’t imagine going without cable in the bedroom TV, scale back to basic boxes on your secondary sets and you’ll still save a bundle.
2) While we’re on the subject of rabbit ears, an increasing number of consumers are cutting pay TV service altogether, and using a combination of over-the-air signals and TV-over-Internet programming – using Netflix or Hulu.com, for example — to fill the void. You might still want to pay for service, particularly if you are a sports fan. But you can use the option of over-the-air TV as a bargaining chip to get a lower rate from your provider.
Comments Money Quote:
Turned the satellite service off after they told me it would a $75 service to re-align the satellite, i.e. I could receive no channels due to the dish not beingh properly aligned after 1 year of use. My wife and I enjoy the FREE air waves and watch far less boobtube anything. The major stations carry most major events so we do not miss much but we get a lot more time to do other things. Well worth it. From Dave in IN