Paul’s Tech Makeover: Preparing to Cut the Cord (Premium)

We’re still about a month away from our move to Pennsylvania, but I’ve started planning for our cord-cutting future. And a big part of that is choosing which online service—or, more likely, services—we’ll use to replace cable TV.

This isn’t something that will be decided today. But with two weeks of downtime before our home swap, and then an incredibly busy week of logistical nightmares after that, now’s as good a time as any to start thinking about this stuff. And testing a few of the solutions that might work for us.

Note: Brad recently wrote about this topic as well. Be sure to check out The Essentials: Cutting the Cord, One Year Later.

As you probably know, or could at least imagine, there are a number of so-called cord-cutting services, and we’ll probably see many more in the months ahead. Each has its pros and cons on paper, and just using the services will reveal issues that aren’t otherwise obvious. But part of the issue here is particular to your own needs. That is, how much TV do you watch? And “what” TV do you watch? On what channels?

Too, moving to online services will almost necessitate behavioral changes. This is a topic I write and, on podcasts, talk about a lot: That we too often confuse tradition and familiarity with the “right” way to do things. And when you think about it, this sudden move to Pennsylvania has really put the reality to the theory by forcing me, and my family, to not just consider major change but to make it happen in a short period of time. In a way, I feel like I’ve been training myself for this moment.

Anyway, with TV-type services, in particular, the first step, as I see it, is to identify the “what” and “where,” and then be flexible about the “how.” So I’ve thought about the TV shows we really do watch (“what”), and then identified where they can be found (“where”). Then, I can look at the various available services—YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, PlayStation Vue, and so on—and see how they measure up.

That measuring up takes two forms: The availability of the content we want, of course, but also device compatibility. One of the benefits of cord cutting is that access to this content can be more universally accessible than is (easily) possible with just cable, both on TV-attached devices (Apple TV and the like, but also the smart TV itself) and on mobile devices. There are limits, on most services, to the number of live streams you can use at once, the number of devices you can use at once, the number of sub-accounts (for kids) you can have, and so on.

In preparation for our coming move, I recently wiped out all of the non-current scheduled recordings on our cable box-based DVR. (We have FIOS, which is fiber, but let’s just call it cable for simplicity’s sake.) We’ll need to give this box back to FIOS in August, so I’ll wipe out the rest when the time comes. (Until then, we can continue recording and watching shows that are on now.) This means I need to work off my memory in some cases, which means this list won’t be complete.

But the short version goes like this. We watch a mix of TV shows that span broadcast TV, cable TV (AMC, HGTV, etc.), and premium cable TV (HBO, etc.). Mostly the latter two, as it turns out, though we watch sports too. Shows like “The Walking Dead,” which is on AMC, or “Game of Thrones,” which is on HBO, will be paid extras no matter which service we choose, at best. In some cases, they simply won’t be available, meaning we’ll have to look elsewhere, including just buying a season on iTunes or whatever.

This presents an interesting challenge. For example, I could look at a year of HBO Now—which is $15 per month, or $180 per year—and not really justify the price. Or, I could simply move in and out of this subscription as needed. For example, if I want to watch the new season of “Game of Thrones,” I can subscribe for the time period in which it is on—probably a two- or three-month span—or I could just wait until it concludes and then we could pay for one month and binge-watch it.

That’s an example of the behavioral change I mentioned. In other cases, you might be able to access new shows one day after they air. But since that’s how we watch a lot of TV already, it won’t be that onerous. With exceptions.

There are some shows—like “The Walking Dead” (AMC), “Homeland” (Showtime, thanks Todd), and others—that we like enough to watch live. So that might be problematic, depending on the service(s) we use. There are others, like “The Americans” (FX) or “Better Call Saul” (AMC), that are on at such a time, or day, that we typically watch it the next night. So those should be fine.

There are also “filler” shows we record that just sort of build up over time. My wife and I work from home so we typically watch a 30-minute show, usually some version of “House Hunters” (HGTV, preferably the international version, though they’re all basically terrible), while we eat lunch. We blanket record these shows currently, and we just pick and choose, and don’t really care if we miss any. We also record “The Simpsons” (Fox, other channels) and some other cartoons (“Family Guy,” etc.) because everyone in the family likes them.

You almost need a spreadsheet to figure this out. But my gut feeling is that no one service will offer the content from all of these channels. Which leads me to another assumption that’s just based on common sense: Cord-cutting isn’t so much about saving money, it’s about flexibility. That is, I don’t believe I’ll really save much, if anything, each month by doing this. But because I can move in and out of various services at will, I can customize what we use—and pay for—on the fly.

I believe this will be worth the trouble. But I am open to the notion that the end game here will be us subscribing to some inexpensive cable TV package because that just makes sense. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, I’m going to start testing some services. Probably starting with Hulu with Live TV or PlayStation Vue, if only because YouTube TV isn’t available here in the Boston area yet. I’ll let you know how it goes.

And let me know if you have any questions or advice. This is actually a huge topic, and while I probably won’t be able to hit on every single nuance, it’s absolutely something I want to get right.