Unplugged

March 1 – 2, 2013, was this year’s National Day of Unplugging, a 24 hour time period running from sunset to sunset in which people are encouraged to put down their gadgets and spend more time doing things with family, friends, neighbors – in other words, take part in life. I didn’t stay offline but I did unplug, in a way.

March 1 was the day I opened my Comcast cable bill and saw that it had gone up six percent. Comcast raises the price every year, so it wasn’t unexpected. But Comcast, in my opinion, has gotten greedy. They’ve already bought 51% of NBC Universal and they’ve announced plans to buy the remainder. They’ve got more money than they know what to do with.

And what entertainment do they provide? Reality shows about hillbilly catfish grabbers, shows about guys looking through old barns for trash to sell to people with more money than sense, shows about people who are famous only because they are on a reality show, shows about pawn shop employees, game shows, soap operas, right-wing cable news, left-wing cable news, the transvestite golf channel – the list of what I don’t want to watch on cable TV is a long one.

Not only that, the number of commercials is out of control. One of my favorite shows is The Big Bang Theory. It seemed to have a lot of commercials, so one night I put the commercial break times into a spreadsheet so I could easily calculate how much of the show was “content” and how much consisted of commercials. The “30 minute” show was actually 20 minutes, 15 seconds. One third of the show’s 30 minute time slot was filled with commercials.

So I called Comcast and told them to drop my cable TV. The lady at customer service explained that the price increase was to cover the cost of all the fantastic new services that Comcast is rolling out. I have only the “extended basic” TV plan and Internet service, so I asked her why am I being billed more each year to cover the cost of providing services that I’m not buying. I already knew the answer, though. They’re billing me because they can.

I receive several local channels on an indoor UHF antenna, though I’m in a fringe zone and sometimes weather affects the picture. But usually I can get CBS, ABC, and PBS. I used to get NBC but on the day when the country transitioned to digital, my local NBC station transitioned from the UHF band to the VHF band, and when I rescanned for them they were gone.

CBS, ABC, and NBC offer free, full episodes of most of their shows online, as do Comedy Central and MTV. Some shows and movies are available through services like Netflix, Hulu, Fancast, TV.com, Veoh, and Joost. Classic TV shows are available on In2TV, and many sporting events are streamed on ESPN3.

I can watch shows on my TV as they stream in to my computer. So I’m not entirely unplugged. But instead of turning on the TV and flipping through channels to some mind-numbing show I didn’t even intend to watch, I must now either settle for a local channel or make the effort to seek out and stream an online show, so maybe I won’t “tune in” as often.

This isn’t the first time I’ve canceled cable TV because of a price hike. The last time I canceled, I was without cable for several years until one day a salesman from the cable company offered a discount if I would sign up again, and on a whim I did. As I said, it’s not the first time, but I think this is the last time I will cancel cable.