Cutting the Cord

I made a decision last week that I never thought I'd make. I cancelled my DirecTV service. When I was younger, I thought cable was the one amenity I would pay any amount of money for. I worked in TV for 14 years and it was a big part of my life. But after a big jump in my DirecTV bill, my practical side took over.

I was very happy to switch from Comcast to DirecTV when I bought my townhouse. The main reason was because DirecTV offered MASN, which shows Washington Nationals games. For years I had no option to watch Nationals games, because Comcast didn't offer MASN and I lived in the Nationals home market, meaning the games would be blacked out if I bought the MLB Extra Inning package.

I really didn't have any complaints with DirecTV, other than the fact that it occasionally went out when it rained. But they do what a lot of companies do - offer you great deals for the first year or two, then jack up the prices. When my deal ran out, my bill went from less than $100 to $170. I can't justify paying $170 a month just for satellite TV. Their selling point is that you get upwards of 200 channels, but who actually needs that many? How many channels do you watch on a regular basis? 10? 15?

So yesterday I packed up all the DirecTV equipment (which was a lot more time-consuming and labor-intensive than I thought it would be) and shipped it back to them. I decided to get YouTube TV. It's $45 a month. And so far it looks like it has just about anything I would want to watch. Except MASN. Looks like I'm back where I started (but with a little more money in my wallet!).