TV news is all hyperbole. There are legitimate news sources out there however.
The real world that I interact with in person is all the news I need.
In the interest of staying out of a political discussion I will agree to disagree and leave it there. 
If I got news from people around me, I’d be no better off than Charlie Mackenzie
Yeah, streaming isn’t a problem as long as the internet is functioning. Which is maybe 70% of the time.
I’ve found that cutting the cord isn’t possible unless you’re willing to give up some show availability.
For me, that’s Baseball. Sure, MLB has an excellent streaming service, but I’m well in the O’s blackout area. And our illustrious owner, Angelos, has such a nice cable deal that you only get O’s games with premium cable/satellite subscriptions. I love watching the O’s, but it’s not worth upwards of $150 a month. (Especially during seasons like this one.)
The wife and I don’t watch much TV, so we can make do with just Amazon and Netflix. I also subscribe to Motortrend On Demand, I get most of my motorsports through that. Still need to figure out how to stream NHRA races, I know they stream them but I just haven’t figured out how to get it to the tv yet.
As for news, I find it’s much easier to filter it in online formats. Everyone puts out so much extra crap on top of the little bits of information that actually matter it takes insane amounts of time to actually watch the news and get anything useful from it.
It’s getting easier to cut the cord, you can get thursday night football on Amazon prime now. The big issue is lack of competition, related to some bad actors trying to control the market and manipulate the rules (oddly similar to the beer industry). With the sheer quantity of content available now, I think most will find they don’t miss shows. A lot of shows can be streamed on the networks website if you’re willing to watch commercials. Your local library is also a great place to get shows and movies of you’re willing to wait. They also have these great things called “books”, which have a wonderful smell and great content.
I couldn’t agree more!!
I sometime feel like we were one of the first cord-cutters. Not really true but we dropped cable 10 or 12 years ago. Switched from a “real” landline to Vonage 4 or 5 years before that. And then we dropped Vonage now that all the kids have cell phones.
For TV we have an antenna, Netflix and Amazon Prime. Oddly, when we had cable most of what we watched were cooking shows and Sci-Fi and that hasn’t really changed. The cooking shows come from PBS and the Sci-Fi comes through Comet.
I used to be a news junky but it’s so bad now I really don’t care to take the time to try and watch it anymore. How many times do I really need to hear the weather on any given day? The last time I tried to watch the local morning news the format was 30 seconds of headlines, 30-90 seconds of weather, 15 seconds for a traffic report and 5 minutes of commercials. Rinse repeat for, I think they said, two hours. Exact same “news” each time and on top of that it was all reruns of the stories they showed on the 9-10 news the night before. The major news magazines have all stopped publishing actual paper magazines and they web content, if you can find it amongst the ads is as bad as TV.
Now I brew, do woodworking, garden and have a couple of beers when I need something to do.
Ahhh. I feel better. Thanks for the rant. ;D
Cut the cord. I think it’s like what I’ve been told about retirement. The first month you will worry about everything. The second month you’ll wonder why you waited so long to quit.
Paul
The Portland Trailblazers did that this year, they switched from having 10-15 games a year on the local NBC affiliate to every single game on Comcast Sports NW, which requires a cable package AND the add on sports package to get. I’m a fan, but I’m not that committed. I can go watch games at the bar rather than pay $200 a month. For football we can get by with mostly local channels only, Mariners games I don’t mind listening to on the radio honestly.
When I first moved into my Portland apartment I had an FM antenna and got internet so I could have computer and netflix. We got a free trial of Comcast’s Prism TV and we liked it enough to pay for but now after two years we’re on the brink of cancelling. We have a Roku TV, so we can get Netflix, Amazon prime and we’re debating some other subscription services like Hulu or Sling. Even if we have 3 or 4 things that are all 10-20$ a month it’s still cheaper than Prism. I have a few shows I follow on Netflix and Amazon, my wife hardly watches TV at all except NFL football.
The hitch of course is still paying 75$ a month for the high speed internet to run all the streaming stuff. But, that’s still better than the internet and cable which will go up to like 180$ a month when our current deal ends…
Wait, you need a premium cable package to watch a local sports team? The only local pro sports team in your market (yeah I know the Timbers are pro, but soccer isn’t close to the NBA)? That’s total and complete horse shit.
That’s the case here. Same with the Nats, Angelos makes money off them as well. (Part of the deal cut to allow another team in the O’s market.) He makes a killing weather the O’s sink or swim…so they mostly just sink.
If Machado ends up in pinstripes I’m burning my Orioles gear and becoming a member of the Red Sox Nation. (My dad’s side of the family are all from MA. Next to the O’s that’s the only other baseball team my family cares about.)
I feel like that’s the way a lot of markets are going. Baseball plays half the year in empty stadiums because of all the TV money. More and more it seems like the NFL doesn’t care about butts in the seats (and not just with their public statements). I don’t know if anyone does anymore, but that’s why they used to do the local blackouts of games to get people into the stadium. Rather than try to force everyone to the arena, they make more money off the TV deals…
Timbers games are sometimes on local KGW, sometimes on Root sports, so I can usually watch them. I’m half tempted to say the Timbers draw a bigger crowd than the Blazers, but that’s probably not true. Both fan bases are super passionate.
There’s so many bars in town that show Timbers matches and Blazer games I can’t imagine paying for the premium package. Plus, tickets usually aren’t too hard to come by.