Do You Dare Cut the Cord to Your TV Provider?

My son has cut the cord to his cable provider. He did it not only to save money, but because he simply doesn't have time to watch everything that is out there. Like many people, he mostly watches things on demand, either via a DVR or sites that allow on-demand viewing.

He hasn't cut all viewing bills to $0. He purchased Sling services which currently starts at $20 a month and offers streaming options. He still has his Netflix streaming account and can get movies and shows using his Amazon Prime account. He thinks I am a dinosaur for still getting Netflix DVDs in the mail. Netflix probably feels the same way and I am sure mailing DVDs will disappear entirely in the near future.

I'm getting all kinds of offers (see at bottom) to alternatives to my cable subscription. Amazon alone is offering me an Amazon Channels Free Trial and suggest using Prime to watch thousands of movies and TV shows Aon demand. They even ask me to try an HBO Free Trial, which I would think is almost their competition these days.


With all these deals, why wouldn't everyone cut the cord? One reason people hang on is because many of these other services don't offer your local channels and some "basic" cable channels like CNN or sports channels.

modern HDTV antenna

A friend of mine was in that situation and started to investigate the HDTV antennas that are available.

This seems like a throwback to the 1950s and 60s when every home had an antenna on the roof or a "rabbit ears" antenna on top of the TV.

The current generation of antennas allow you to pull in HDTV network programming for free - just like in the old days - with no monthly fee or subscription. It sounds ideal, but you are not going to get all that cable content, though you should get your local CBS, NBC and ABC affiliates and some other channels.

Adjusting your TV antenna 60 years ago had become a kind of art. You learned which way to turn it for channel 2 as opposed to how to get channel 7. People hooked up additional wires, tin foil and other things to them to increase the pickup.

The new 360º multi-directional designs eliminate constant adjustments and they support up to 1080i HDTV broadcasts. But they have limits. Many products say they can pull channels from towers that are within 40 miles of your TV. I live well within that range of New York City, so I probably could get all the local channels. Most of these products also have disclaimers that reception quality and channels received will depend on not only your distance from towers, but broadcast power, terrain and other factors like buildings and power lines.

modern, but old-style, outdoor antenna

I found that you can still buy rooftop TV antennas that look a lot like the ones from 50 years ago, though they are much more sophisticated and include amplifiers and other devices.

All of this media movement is part of the "on-demand" movement that started with VCRs that allowed us to "time shift" our viewing habits and terrified the TV industry.

We still have some live event TV that is rarely watched at a later date. The upcoming Oscars and certainly the Super Bowl are perfect examples of "event TV" that is viewed live and that advertisers and channels love because they can easily measure the audience share.

I picked up a book in the library recently called On-Demand Culture that focuses on how this is changing the movie industry. It is not just about people watching films at home, but how the movie industry is changing because of digital technologies. Most people don't think about that film distributors now send films to theaters electronically. But consumers not only purchase or rent movies instantly online, but they are streaming them to high-definition televisions, their laptops and often to small mobile devices.

When TV made its entrance bigtime in the 1950s, the movies reacted by going big with wide screens and color that TV couldn't compete with in quality. TV has caught up in many ways with that quality issue.

I still like to go to a movie theater, but I go far less than I did in the past. Going to a theater has also become a kind of event. I go to films that I don't want to wait to see in a few weeks or month when they make it to my TV.

An “on-demand culture,” is shifting not only our viewing habits but many of our other expectations. When do people want to shop, or fill in an application? Any time at all is the answer. On demand.

Even education, which has been my life's work, has gone on-demand with online content and online courses that allow student to time shift their education and pick and choose what content they want to view and when they want to view it. Most college professors have had to become proficient at creating digital content even if they still teach face-to-face in a classroom.

Am I ready to cut the cord?  I'm watching the examples of my friend and my son. Maybe this dinosaur sees an asteroid headed his way.

Curating Netflix

There is just too much on television (a word that seems outdated now). I can't keep up. I would rather watch a movie than a TV show, but my wife prefers 30 and 60 minute doses of content.

With Amazon and Netflix and others providing even more content, I feel like I need some content curation help. Yes, I do make lists of things I want to watch. I joke about the fact that my Netflix queue has about 400 films. there is no way I can die yet. Too much to watch.

I read that Netflix actually has fewer movies than a few years ago, but if so I haven't noticed a lack. You may know that these services not only add but remove content every month. One way I filter is looking at Thrillist's lists of their takes on the best shows and movies and the best documentaries and the newest content each month. 

But if you're on the Netflix site itself, you might not know how many categories and genres they use. Of course, there is Comedy, Action, Kids and such but there are actually thousands of sub-genres.

You can find digital Venn diagrams of overlapping categories to get things like Campy Crime Comedies or Suspenseful Movies starring Michael Caine.

I found the website whatsonnetflix.com that lists Netflix code numbers. If you add the numerical code to the end of Netflix's URL, you'll see all the shows and movies currently available in that category. It seems that these codes also change regularly, because some of them work and some don't. I'm looking now at the DVD section of Netflix (which is sure to disappear soon) where I can find Quirky-Comedies-Movies-TV and Independent Satires, and my beloved Film Noir.

Netflix and other providers have gotten a lot better at providing their own sophisticated search. For example, the screenshot below shows a dropdown menu of Classic subgenres.

Dark Shadows

Frid as Barnabas

Depp as Barnabas

The release of the Dark Shadows film with Johnny Depp this month has brought attention back to the campy TV original Gothic suspense series.

It ran from 1966-1971. I don't think I ever watched more than a few scenes in those days, but I do recall girls I went to school with being big fans. It was on in the late afternoon, so they could run home to catch an episode in those days of no VCRs or ways of recording, time-shifting or on-demand.

This gothic soap opera aired weekdays on the ABC television network, and actually started without any supernatural elements. It was unprecedented in daytime television when ghosts were introduced about six months after it began.

The series went more viral when vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) appeared a year into its run. Eventually, it had werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel, and a parallel universe.

Part of the camp fun was that it was low budget (often compared in that way to the British series Doctor Who). There was a small company of actors and they each played many roles and some characters were eventually played by more than one actor.

There have been compilations and bootlegs available over the years since it went off the air and it definitely has a cult following. It must have a following to warrant a release (re release, it seems) of a complete boxed set that contains every episode. That's 1225 episodes on 131 discs!

Yes, it has some extras too - interviews with the stars and creative members, but Dark Shadows: The Complete Original Series will cost in the range of $400-$600. Apparently, it had been released before in various box sets that were $60.00 per set and there were 32 sets to purchase - so, to the fan, I guess this is a bargain!

We also forget that so many shows from the early days of television through the 1960s were not recorded or archived that they are gone. For example, the first episode of Dark Shadows to feature Barnabas from 1967 was an old kinescope. Those were films that were shot off a TV screen to retain a copy. (Sounds like what would become "pirating." Kinescopes are usually grainy and rough looking. The new release has a better copy of that episode that was restored.


Director Tim Burton and Johnny depp are both big fans of the original. Depp was obsessed as a child with wanting to be Barnabas Collins and collaborated with Burton on the film inwhich he finally gets to be Barnabas. The film has gotten mixed reviews (5.4 of 10 on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes)

There have been two other films based on the soap opera Dark Shadows back when it was a TV hit: House of Dark Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971).

Seinfeld Campus Tour Misses New Jersey

(I miss Kramer)

I'm mad that the Seinfeld Campus Tour never made it to my campus - or any NJ campus. They are all over the place and online. Sure, I can add them to my Facebook profile, add them as a MySpace friend, but I want to see the puffy shirt and all the rest of the stuff.



Video: The Soup Nazi (actor, Larry Thomas) describes how
Do Something is working with the Seinfeld Campus Tour
to contribute to the community.


Worse than shrinkage...