Living without Cable or Satellite Television

After reading an article on Yahoo! about someone who was unsuccessful living without cable television, I looked back at being an OTA (over-the-air) TV household since January 2007.

When I was growing up, my family never had cable television. In high school, there were channels that tried to simulate having cable. TV 38's (now UPN) Movie Loft would air movies in their full theatrical running time. The magic phrase of "viewer discretion is advised" made sure that I would be home for their unedited broadcasts of the Michael Cimino's Deer Hunter and and Brian DePalma's Dressed to Kill. Boston also had a station that capitalized on the advent of music videos with V66. And even with those serviceable substitutes for cable channels, I still missed out on original cable series programming such as "Dream On" and early days of ESPN.

My parents took in a college student while I was away as an undergrad and he paid to install cable television in our house of which I took advantage of after moving home. And for the next 12 years, where ever I lived, I had cable television. During that span cable television added sister channels to their more popular stations, high definition, on-demand programming and Music Choice stations. They were even instructional videos on-demand where I improved my softball swing.

When we left our Cambridge condo and settled into our one month sublet in Brookline, we lived without cable television with limited over-the-air television because the thickly settled area. After we moved to Newton, we never made that phone call for the 9AM - 3PM window to be home for installation.

And months before the analog conversion to all digital, I purchased a High Definition tuner. At that time, OTA provided nine high definition stations, more than half of what cable provided. Over the next year or so, cable television technology grew with more high definition stations, DVRs, and multi-room networking.

There was a point where the allure of cable television lured me back in but I weighed my options below.

Television Programming

Series, miniseries, reality shows and documentaries can be now viewed on sites such as hulu.com or borrowed from your local libraries for free. Even when "Lost" aired for its seven seasons, it was not enough for me to watch even when it was not on a cable station.

Gone are the days when everyone talked about Melrose Place or Seinfeld the next day. And even though the shows are more intricate than others in the past, the variety has given to a diluted following. You can always find someone who didn't watch last night's "True Blood", either because they don't follow it or they are waiting to watch it on their DVR. And because of that television shows are not a needed for a conversation piece during a night out.

Live Programming

Between news and sports, the latter was the most difficult to adjust without cable television. News can be read on the internet through many outlets. Red Sox schedules used to come out with key maps with of broadcasts denoted by: = WSBK, = NESN and = FOX. Shortly after TV38's branded Friday night broadcasts of "Sox in the City," it disappeared and OTA television was limited to the handful of Saturday mid-afternoon broadcasts on Fox. So I broke it down to what I would be missing. (Please keep in mind that Boston sports has hit a bit of a crest and the phrase "subject to blackout" is rarely heard.)

Here is a list of what is available OTA this past year.

New England Patriots - All games are broadcast in High Definition with local area coverage applied through the National television outlets. (http://www.patriots.com/schedule/index.cfm?ac=schedule&season=2009)

Boston Red Sox - Games are only available in High Definition on Fox with local area coverage applied through the National television outlets. The number of 2010 games the Red Sox on Fox (http://static.foxsports.com/content/fscom//binary/2010/02/03/MLB1265228749414.pdf) have is 7

Boston Celtics - Before the 2007 playoffs, it was zero games. The 2009-2010 season garnered six (6) High Definition games on ABC (http://www.nba.com/schedules/national_tv_schedule/ABC/).

Boston Bruins - Six (6) games were televised on NBC (http://www.hdsportsguide.com/news/2009/nhl-on-nbc-for-2009-10-season/) beginning with the Winter Classic on New Year's Day 2010.

Patriots Super Bowl, Celtics & Bruins Conference Semis and Red Sox ALDS

As we embark on the 2010 postseason this Sunday, I took some time to reflect on playoff outcome of the last four majors Boston. Argurably, there hasn't been a time in the history of our sports that had all four major professional teams that are simultaneously reeling from combined losses of this magnitude. This is coming off six titles within six years earning Boston the moniker Title Town of the Decade. Had it not been for those championships, Massachusetts' ranking of #46 Happiest State in Country would surely dip to dead last below Connecticut and New York.

I'll start from the worst to the least painful.

1. Super Bowl XLII, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Arizona, Sunday, February 3, 2008 - The playoffs that year seemed more a blur to me than any of the other Patriots postseason.

The Ben Watson touchdown saving tackle on Champ Bailey's 100-yard interception before the half in Denver on January 14, 2006 is what I can remember. The image of the Patriots D lineman sitting on the sidelines keeping their legs from cramping in Indianapolis in 2007 is what I remember. Those games though painful losses are burned into my sports section of my brain.

But the two playoffs games in 2008 including Super Bowl XLII are non-existent to me, almost as if they reside next to the asterisk of the UMass Minutemen run in the 1994 NCAA tournamnent. The rout over a hurt David Rivers & LaDanian Tomlinson (that's LDT, not LT as there is only one LT) squad was text book and should have been filed into the vaults and the clinic put on Jacksonville was just amazing.

That game will forever be erased as was my 1986 World Series Game 6 extra inning game that had St. Elsewhere's When You Wish Upon a Scar* episode that first aired that following Thursday on October 1, 1986 taped over it.

Apparently the Boston media thinks so too. Not even a inkling of footage or breakdown from any of those games from that season.

2. NBA Conference Semifinals Game 7, TDBank Garden, Boston, MA, Thursday, May 17, 2009 - Two storied Celtics streaks are broken when they lost last year: Losing a Game 7 at home and losing a series after leading 3-2 in a best-of-7.

With Kevin Garnett out of the playoffs, there was little chance that a repeat could happen but could you predict a Game 7 collapse after being up a game with a possible two to go. But we knew the series wasn't going to end with a prophetic guarantee after an away loss in Game 6. These weren't the 1988 Atlanta Hawks (of which current Celtic coach Doc Rivers was a member) we were talking about and these weren't the Larry Bird led Celtics.

Larry Bird is not going to walk through that door, Kevin McHale is not going to walk through that door...

3. NHL Conference Semifinals Game 7, TDBank Garden, Boston, MA, Sunday, May 21, 2009 - After falling to 3-1 to the Hurricanes, only a Bruins tsunami could overcome this deficit.

4. American League Divisional Series Game 3, Fenway Park, Boston, MA, Sunday October 10, 2009 - 1986, 2004, 2007, 2008 and The End. 12 out of their last 13.

Okay, it's been three months since the Red Sox were eliminated from the playoffs and almost two months since the Yankees won their 27th title, the most in Major League Baseball. So after thinking about the Red Sox and their late inning collapse when closer Jonathan Papelbon gave up three runs in the top of the ninth inning to succumb to a 7-6 defeat, I thought about the state of the Boston Sports Playoff Scene.

Regardless of what happens on Sunday the 10th, it will mark the beginning of a new era and the end of this one which I hope we never see again.

* Wow, you can really find everything on the internet!