Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for January 22, 2023

Symptoms of an electronic drug addition…

Janis is about to start a mission.

I finally just dumped Cable and bought myself a decent TV antenna for about $60. Now I receive over 100 TV channels TOTALLY FREE via over-the-air broadcast!

—And sadly about two 3rds of those channels are of little interest to me, so I buy DVDs and watch any movies which DO interest me on my DVD player. Still works out cheaper that way.

Addictions are hard to break.

I subscribe to one channel; I have no desire to rack up multiple charges every month just to watch the one or two series each one has that I like.

Other than snippets I catch that other are watching, I never developed an interest in TV, there are a lot better things to do with your time. Like sitting here at 3:30 am making comments.

Switched over from DISH to a Firestick and absolutely love it. No reason to subscribe to the “premium” stuff with so much free stuff. Big deal I can’t catch the most recent episode of Yellowstone at this time. But six months down the road it’ll be on one of the freebies out there.

Wife and I have DirecTV just so we can get Korean and Japanese channels. we are thinking of adding India channels, just for the Bollywood movies.

Use cable. But, bedammed if I use streamimg.

To answer Arlo’s question …. “Hey! You kids get off my lawn!”

I get DVDs from the Library. FREE! FREE! FREE!

I cut ties with Netflix a couple of years ago, one too many price increases, now I have another streaming company keeping me entertained. It too will be replaced when we run out of the good shows, there are lots of choices now.

I have several, but two are real cheap and a lot less than cable tv.

You pay for all the channels, then pay extra for the content. Wonder why cable companies rake in so much cash?

Don’t pay for movies. I order Blu-ray movies from the library for free. It doesn’t take long for a new movie to be on Blu-ray.

I don’t subscribe. I don’t pay. And I’m never disappointed by “new offerings”.

Most television, cable and broadcast, is garbage and not worth the time or money. At least with you tube there is a small chance you can learn something.

We have a middle of the line antenna so that we can watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. We also can get FOX so that I can watch some football now and then. Wjat more is necessary?

Janis, meet “Carrot-On-Stick”…

It is all about greed!

Gave up TV entirely in 1975. Never got the digital converter when it came out in 2007. Told our 3 kids we’d get cable if they went two successive semesters with no warning notices from school. It was a sucker’s bet; we never did get cable. Instead, we all GOT A LIFE!

We don’t have any streaming services at this time. So much money for so little.

I use my DVD player a lot. There are still some channels I enjoy on cable. Anyway, my landlord wouldn’t let me install a roof antenna.

A fool and his money are soon parted…..

I have a firestick, live about 20 miles from St Louis, and can get more than I can watch. I keep Prime all the time, because it’s free with the stuff I buy from Amazon- actually costs less because it makes shipping free. I get all the local channels, plus pretty much all of the old TV and movies ever made. I can usually find any sports program that’s televised, sometimes a couple of days after the original broadcast. I can watch everything on UTube on the TV, and they have most old movies and TV. The others channels are all under $10 a month and you can drop them whenever you have watched whatever you bought it for, and find whatever is interesting on another $10 channel.

The pay streaming services are about to price themselves out of subscribers! When certain things get too high I just stop buying them. Period. But I guess there are others that the price doesn’t mean anything.

@JJ

You got the pot stirred up again today…..Good Job!

Arlo, the eternal pessimist, but not wrong in this case. Roku has hundreds of free streaming programming choices and several tv and movie programs for antenna viewing viewing as well,

We all see what’s happening here.

I live in a “dead zone;” no TV stations near enough to pick up a free-wave signal. Hence, if I want to have television, I have to buy from a cable carrier. It sucks, to say the least.

We’ve kept our Netflix DVD mail account. Most stuff we stream, but we enjoy foreign films and many recent films are available that way—cheaper than buying DVDs for sure.

I have never had cable/satellite TV nor do I bother to subscribe to any streaming services. TV to me is a total waste of time. Even as a kid, I didn’t enjoy TV other than the Saturday morning cartoons. I much prefer reading, walking, biking, practicing music, crocheting, sewing, and just chilling out with my kitties. I’m weird, I know.

There are down sides to every age.

Why are they sitting so far apart?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BPTOY8FrvNw

I wondered that too, I’m also not seeing the “where this is heading”Anyone out there have mercy on a dense old lady?

I don’t get it, as is often the case with Arlo and Janis. What does Arlo mean by what’s happening here? What’s the joke?

The proliferation of streaming services meant the networks/ studios needed content to fill out their programming; and, a glut of content does not mean ‘quality programming’. Many people will not pay subscription fees to watch shows that have been in syndication for decades and available on home video, too. And, now that streaming isn’t bringing in the revenue that networks/ studios predicted – at least in terms of the cost of new programming – networks/ studios have turned to ad-supported tiers (ie, commercials). One of the best features of streaming services touted by cord cutters was interruption-free programming. Sure, that still exists (for now) but at a higher cost.

Who could have predicted this would happen when the networks and studios started their own streaming services? Only every person with a functioning brain.