Wayne D's Blog

When my 15% bundle discount with my cable company Rogers came to an end I took a closer look at my bill and realized that I was paying $61 for my extended basic cable service. At the beginning of March the rates are going up yet again. I decided that reupping for another two years for a platry 5% discount wasn't really something I wanted to do. I am on a grandfathered anaolog service tier that you can't get anymore, the same package on the digital tier is $61.97 a month for the first six months before tax after that it's anyones guess since I can't find the rates anywhere on their website. When you get right down to it there are only 5 channels that I can't get over the air that I watch in the extended basic cable tier. The strange thing is that when I go to the Rogers website it appears that they have a build your own package option as shown in the screenshot below but clicking on the link takes you back to their package page.

I had lunch with some guys a month or two ago. One of them was talking about how he had ditched his cable, but up and antenna and was quite happy with the over the air HD he was receiving. The quality is better because it isn't horrendously compressed like the through the cable HD is.

I really can't tell whether it's the CRTC or the cable companies who mandate this mass bundling of channels that results in these massive package of channels that people don't watch. I think it's really a cozy relationship that lets the cable companies charge more while they carry the CRTC mandated channels. In the past month other than CBC, CTV and Global which I can get over the air I've watched Showcase, Food Network, Space, History and Discovery. The kids watch YTV, Comedy and Teletoon. On Comedy they generally watch Simpson reruns so that one doesn't really count. That's $8.71 a month per channel and I'm not sure they are worth that much for the amount of time I watch them. They spend most of their free time either on the internet or playing video games so I'm not sure that they would miss cable that much.

When the weather warms up I'm going to put up an outside antenna and give over the air HD a try, if there was more streaming video available in Canada I would probably have done it years ago. Now there is enough legal streaming available online that between it and the over the air stuff I should be able to sate my appetite for TV programming. The reality is that most of the time it's the wallpaper in the room while I sit on the couch with the EEEPC and surf the net. Now I need to head off and get caught up on Fringe before it ages off the CTV streaming site. Next time I set my sights on the telephone bill.