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  • The No TV Nation

    By Joshua Kim September 28, 2010 9:15 pm EDT

    Are you a member of the "No TV Nation"? Have you given up cable and satellite TV? Do you get all your premium and network shows from Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, or some P2P site? Do you miss it?

    I've been a member of the No TV Nation since 2006. The best thing we've ever done. Don't get me wrong - I love TV. My family gets plenty of screen time. We may not be watching season 2 of Glee with the rest of you, but we gorged on season 1 via Netflix. We may be behind on what is going on with Mad Men, but we have watched every single episode available from Netflix (along with The Wire, Weeds, Dexter, Big Love, The L Word, Brotherhood, Deadwood….you get the point).

    We get plenty of video, but the video we consume is selected and curated. My brain loves television - and I'll watch it if it is available. First thing I do when staying at a hotel room is turn on the TV and start surfing. If I had access to cable or satellite TV I have no doubt that surfing would be my preferred form of relaxation. Being cable/satellite disconnected forces me to make choices about what I watch, actively search out my TV media, and find alternatives to surfing the remote.

    Fact is, there are so many ways available to get good TV that subscribing to a monthly service no longer makes sense. Opting out of the monthly cable/satellite deal will change how you consume media. Alternative screens such as iPads or Touches become more attractive. You learn that the size of the screen does not diminish the movie/show watching experience - that holding a screen in your hand makes the show more personal and immediate.

    The big difference, at least for me, is that I no longer watch sports on TV. I used to love watching football. TV sports are a strong addiction. But if I want to watch sports I'm now forced to find a public TV, a place where lots of people are watching. This summer I brought my girls to campus to watch the World Cup in a student TV lounge. A great cultural experience. But mostly I've broken my TV sports addiction. It took a couple of years - but over time you will find that you don't really miss it that much. Besides, more sports are migrating to the Web. The biggest fans can buy online packages to watch professional sports - and still end up paying less than a monthly cable/satellite bill.

    Lacking the easy access to TV, my family has found we fill up the hours with other things. We sit and read more together. We play board games, or the Wii. A family DVD movie is a real treat. We go to bed earlier. We have more time. TV sucks the hours, people with cable/satellite watch more TV than they think they do.

    I've been meeting more and more people who are members of the "No TV Nation". People who have decided they don't need to pay the monthly bill, and are perfectly happy getting their shows from other sources. I'm betting that the size of No TV Nation will grow, as today's college students seem to be disinclined to sit in front of television and watch scheduled programming. They download and stream, pulling what they want, when the want, on the device they want.

    Are you a member of the No TV Nation?

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Comments on The No TV Nation

  • Proud member since 2009
  • Posted by C Shows , Director of Grant Development at St. Johns River Community College on September 29, 2010 at 8:30am EDT

  • My husband and I cut cable last December, and for the most part, we haven't looked back. We use Netflix (streamed through the Xbox 360) and Hulu. I love it! We're more selective about what we watch, which is wonderful because we don't have a lot of spare time. I think we're exposed to fewer commercials - and that's hard to do these days. Having a lack of access to sports TV is a little hard. I'd rather watch the football season in my sweats on the couch, but I'm sure we'll explore other options for that. The nice thing is that if there's some cultural reference that I need to watch, I can usually find out about it via Facebook.

    Overall, I'd recommend trying these alternatives to other folks who are comfortable with technology (streaming, etc.). It's not for everyone, but it's been great for us.

  • Yes!
  • Posted by Laura at Duke University Press on September 29, 2010 at 8:30am EDT

  • Yes! We got rid of our cable TV over a year ago and we don't miss it. We use Netflix and Hulu and get PBS and some other local stations over the air. My husband installed a DVR in our computer which talks to our X-Box 360. I really like how we make a deliberate choice each time we watch something. We never turn on the TV and just see what's on. And my kids aren't exposed to commercials at all. We were convinced we'd made the right decision when we went to the beach this summer and the house we rented had cable TV in every room. Our 8 year old son sat slack-jawed and glassy-eyed in front of it whenever he had the chance.

  • Proud member since 2003!
  • Posted by Joanna on September 29, 2010 at 10:15am EDT

  • As a single parent, I refuse to pay $50 or more a month for a "service" that is going to distract me from things I need to be doing and that will encourage my kids to ask for things that they don't need and that we can't afford. We buy lots of DVDs (thank you, $5 bin at Wal-Mart), and I'm able to watch television episodes online directly from the networks (abc.com, etc.) when I have the time. I like having control over what my still elementary-age children watch while we save money. For us, it works all the way around.

  • I'm with you
  • Posted by Leila at University Press of Mississippi on September 29, 2010 at 10:30am EDT

  • Laura, it must be something in the water at university presses! We dropped our cable a couple months ago, got a Roku box to stream the Netflix (which also can play Pandora on the TV), and are very happy. I'm glad to be saving the $40/month to Comcast (the last straw was when the TV service had been out for four days and I hadn't even noticed), and as others have noted, there's more control over what we choose to watch, and when.

  • Most in the no-broadcast nation
  • Posted by Dr. Pepper , Academic in training on September 29, 2010 at 10:30am EDT

  • I still pay $10 to comcast for the basic-local-only package (ABC, NBC, CBS) but that's because they'd charge me that $10 regardless (my internet is through them, so without the cable I'd end up paying $15 more for cable only...) I don't watch broadcast much though (some local news every now and again). There was a brief time when the cable was HD without a set top box and in those days I DID watch some shows as they aired (24 comes to mind), but once comcast decided to give me grainy 4:3 SD TV on that cable I decided that I could wait 24 hours to watch the latest episode of 24. If I had an ISP that didn't require me to have basic TV or penalize me for opting not to have it, I would probably buy an ATSC antenna for those 30 minutes where I watch local news in the morning

  • Me too
  • Posted by sibyl on September 29, 2010 at 5:30pm EDT

  • Since 2006, in fact. And I even dropped Netflix in 2009 when I moved to a community whose public libraries facilitated my NTVN status.

    Like Joshua, the thing I miss the most is sports. I usually go out to sports bars for must-see events like World Series games and Super Bowls. But there are some sports available online for free -- and most online subscriptions honestly don't cost that much, certainly less than cable prices.

    What I have lost is the casual drop-in. I cannot dip in for a few innings or for the second period after I put my kids to bed. Although my spouse won't admit it, she misses this as well, although her drop-ins of preference were home-improvement and food shows. She correctly points out that we don't waste time looking for something to watch. And we also seem to gain by not committing to new shows until after it's clear they will survive. I suppose this means I will never again know the joys of being a fan of "Profit" (three episodes, 1996, Fox), but she's basically right.

    I fear that within the next few years we will have to spend money for what we get online for free, but until then this TV addict is a proud member of NTVN.

  • Cut the cord
  • Posted by Aleta on September 29, 2010 at 8:15pm EDT

  • My husband and I cut the cord a few weeks ago. The husband is taking it much harder than I am but I grew up with 3 channels that barely came in on our tiny black and white tv. We do not have Netflix (yet). We've discovered alot of great shows on network tv like The Big Bang Theory. It's still an adjustment because with our cable came a DVR and we could record shows. No, we have to be home. And we're usually not.

  • NTVN since 2008, but really 2000
  • Posted by Lurknlearn , Librarian on September 29, 2010 at 10:00pm EDT

  • In 2008 when TV signals went digital we never bought a "box" to convert our analog TV set. But even before that, we turned off cable to save money in 2000 and since then had only had the major networks and very poor reception at that. Our two sons, ages 9 and 7, never and I mean NEVER ask about TV. They're too busy playing with neighborhood friends outside most of the time, and watch episodes of Clone Wars on the web whenever we let them. I don't miss it one bit and prefer to read or waste time on Facebook. My husband, a TV sports addict, does miss his football Saturdays, but it's a great excuse to invite himself over a friends' house and make an event out of it. Many events, like World Cup soccer this year, he can watch on the web. Of course, by no means are we media free and we couldn't survive without wireless at home.

  • Posted by LCB on September 30, 2010 at 11:00am EDT

  • I've never had cable since I left home and headed to college in 1991 and I have never missed it. For the past 15 years or so I had a small TV that I stored in the closet and just took out when I had a video to watch. Now that I have a spare bedroom, I bought a nice flat-screen TV to put in there so I can watch movies in higher quality.

    When there's a TV show I want to watch, I turn to Hulu or Netflix. I have hardly seen any television commercials in years!

  • DVR
  • Posted by Amy R. , Librarian, Coodinator of Technical Services & Systems at Whitworth University on September 30, 2010 at 6:00pm EDT

  • I am not part of the No TV Nation, but I use the DVR for a similar effect: I watch shows when I want (given that when I want is during or after the air time/date), I fast forward through commercials, and I rarely watch things that are not on the DVR. This limits the time I spend watching something just because I have nothing else to do.

  • Pulled the plug in July 2003 . . .
  • Posted by iteachpsych , Psychology Adjunct Faculty on October 5, 2010 at 10:30pm EDT
  • . . . and have rarely missed it since. I do have occasion to view TV from time to time at friends' house and have concluded I am missing very little. My best friend DVRs interesting documentaries and psychology-related stuff for me once in a while. At some point I will return to having TV in the house, but it's not a high priority.
  • Long gone
  • Posted by Thatcher , Inst tech coord at Yavapai College on October 6, 2010 at 8:45pm EDT
  • I grew up on 6-8 hrs a day in the 70s-80s, and have been cut off completely since leaving home. I feel a bit out of touch since not having the TV, and not wanting to be on a computer ALL the time has equated to losing interest in most pop media entirely. I (gulp) have never seen the daily show! I listen to NPR. I miss PBS.
    I wonder how my 12, 11 and 8yr olds will approach the world differently. They watch plenty of funny YT vids, but almost no news or "serious" content, which may be important to their development. The channelOne stuff they get through public school is pretty lame & tame.
  • Over 35 yrs without!
  • Posted by Sally , Business owner at Everlasting Life Decor.com on October 25, 2010 at 8:45am EDT
  • I guess my husband and I were ahead of our time. We trashed the TV to stop petty squabbles in our marriage in '74. I just found this blog and feel stupid that I haven't looked before, as I knew there had to be lots who have made the move now. I have 5 children, all adults now, who grew up with virtually no TV. The absence of the tube, makes a whole different family, and children too. There must be some disadvantages of being without the thing, but the advantages far outweigh them. I could write a book. Your children, if they are allowed to live real life and don't watch too many of those videos, will become impressive people. Their senses will not be dulled, they will not be expecting a fantasy world. They will know how to pursue, persist and succeed. The repetition of TV usage, the limitations of the medium, the hype, the lies, the fake; all combine to make an equation for dumbing down the populace. Ever see the Matrix? Do you really think the TV news is keeping in touch?
  • TV STiNKS!
  • Posted by TV STiNKS on October 26, 2010 at 9:45pm EDT
  • My wife and I have been without TV for most of our 11 years together. We have 3 kids who don't know what it's like to be ignored by their parents who are too busy watching Glee.
  • I woke up today and started my TV Sabbatical
  • Posted by TV Sabbatical Starts Now on December 6, 2010 at 6:30pm EST
  • I don't know why today was the day, but had the thought yesterday and through the night, my intuition confirmed and whispered "yes, its time"...So I took a deep breath, and canceled the tv/cable--unbundled it, laughed with the local TV provider about the craziness of it all. But it feels right. So quiet. No longer a box beckoning me to spend time with it.

    My daughter in college, soon to be going to Ireland, said "DVD's?" Yes, I assured her, she could watch DVD's whenever she is back from college.

    If feels like coming home after a long journey. There is something nice about the quietness of the home, just waiting for real life sounds to fill its walls. Friends are coming over tonight. The journey begins...


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