One Show Closer . . . .
To cancelling cable. While I do watch a lot (and I mean a LOT) of television, it’s 98% broadcast TV, and the 2 shows on premium channels (Burn Notice and Eureka) are available on iTunes. Since I have an AppleTV hooked to the TV, and plenty of storage space, I often contemplate just cancelling my basic cable subscription, or not connecting it when I move. Only 2 things have been stopping me: Criminal Minds and The Mentalist.
These are two of my favorite shows, and they’re not (legally) available online ANYWHERE. Not Hulu, not iTunes, not Amazon VOD, not even on the CBS website. Until this week. CBS finally added Criminal Minds to the iTunes store. I have to admit, after almost 5 years on the air, I’d pretty much given up hope that this would happen. But browsing through the TV shows on iTunes tonight, there was Criminal Minds! Just sitting there, minding it’s own business, sliding in quietly without any fanfare just like it tends to do on TV. And only $27.99 for the High Definition Season Pass that will get me all 22 episodes of the current season! So the first 12 episodes of the season are downloading now, and every week the newest episode will download automatically.
So now it’s time for me to beg CBS to put The Mentalist online, and then I don’t have to worry about hooking up cable TV when I move to my new apartment this spring.
For the record, my TV lineup (in order of weekly broadcast) is as follows:
- How I Met Your Mother
- Castle
- NCIS
- NCIS: LA
- The Forgotten
- Criminal Minds
- CSI:NY
- Bones
- CSI: Las Vegas
- The Mentalist
- Flashpoint
- Numb3rs
- Burn Notice
- Eureka
I told you it was a lot of TV..
Would buying season passes/individual shows from the various online sources be cheaper than cable? That blows my mind! Or maybe I just haven’t had cable in so long that I have no idea how expensive it is…
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:02 amDepends on the cable subscription. At an average of $30 per show from iTunes, for all 14 shows that’s $420 per year. My cable company’s “introductory” rates are as low as $29.99 for 6 months of Digital Cable, then jump to $59.99 for the next 6 months. Which is a total of over $530 per year, without any DVR or other special features that cost extra. So generally, yes, iTunes is actually cheaper, as long as the all-at-once, up-front cost is manageable.
On the other hand, for the moment I can get away with a basic cable subscription at $13.95/month and the ability to record with my HTPC, so for now cable is actually not more expensive, but the ability to do that could go away anytime the cable company decides to screw with the unencrypted local channel broadcasts. They’re not SUPPOSED to turn those off, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do it anyway.
Oh, plus, there are no ads in the iTunes versions, which is really nice.
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:30 pm