I have a company where they offer very low rates for new subscribers too.  I did what a friend suggested...and which he did also.  You just call them up and tell them you're canceling because the rates are too high.  They cut ours in half immediately for the next year. Down under $100/month for basic cable, land line phone and internet.

I'm currently trying out this one: Adblock for Youtube. It's a Chrome extension.
 
It seems to be working, although I'm still wondering how it can tell an ad from normal content. I mean, most of the videos related to music software are in fact ads. Even the ones I might intentionally seek out and recommend.
 
 

Susan, if you live in an urban area you can get plenty of channels with a small antenna that requires no permanent installation or holes through the wall.
 
Mine is a little square piece of plastic that I simply set on the windowsill. It cost $39. There are both passive and active (amplified) versions, but in the city the passive ones actually do better. I get 18 channels with it, including all four of the local network affiliates so I can watch the news on Fox and then switch over to NBC to find out what really happened. 

bitflipper
Susan, if you live in an urban area you can get plenty of channels with a small antenna that requires no permanent installation or holes through the wall.
 
Mine is a little square piece of plastic that I simply set on the windowsill. It cost $39. There are both passive and active (amplified) versions, but in the city the passive ones actually do better. I get 18 channels with it, including all four of the local network affiliates so I can watch the news on Fox and then switch over to NBC to find out what really happened. 

Hi Dave-
 
That's good to know. This is a distinctly non-urban area ;), but maybe I'll try an amplified version. My only experience with antennas since the old rabbit ears type is the little wire attached to clock radios which basically do nothing. 

I can watch the news on Fox and then switch over to NBC to find out what really happened.

 
Thanks-
 
-Susan

For my fellow Canadians, [and of course, others], I found a site with lot's of info about all these things and much more.
It primarily caters to the entire Canadian TV, Phone and Internet industry, and where it's heading, including over the air, free from the air, satellites, internet TV, ISPs, etc. but there is some info that pertains to the US as well.
 
There's much to learn and I've been reading there for about a week now on this and other related subjects.
 
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/

The good news, UB, is that Sharknado 3 will be available on Netflix.

 
Just too much?

Since I am not a big tv junkie , and live in the country, I erected a nice aerial system and receive OTA HD tv, with lots of local news weather etc and plenty of classic  tv programs.
 
I visited a cable tv provider forum once(dsl-reports) and broached the issue about new people getting 1/2 off internet rates while existing customers get shafted, and was set upon by the cable fanbois who said cable was just taking a "loss" to hook new users, and I said bulls**t,needless to say thats the view and we cant change it. You can play the jump around game, by waiting out a year and reapplying for "new" lower rates by switching around providers, but its not worth the hassle, is it?
I still have a POTS landline since I have an alarm system, but may weigh switching to a cell based add on to the alarm and rid myself of the landline, since I have, a cell phone, they have kept going up on my land line from 18 a month to 33 now with NO packages.

Right Ston. I forgot about the rain channel - that's a free one here too. 

Right - yes, I've just found that out over the last few days.
 
Some of it has to be in place by March 2016, and all of it by Dec 2016.

bluzdog
A friend of mine turned me on to this guy: http://freetvee.com/ It's a pretty elegant solution. My Comcast bill is now $50/mo vs. the $212/mo that I was paying. I bought my own modem and router so I'm not renting any equipment. He built me a media PC with the internet connection and an antennae connected to it. I use Ooma for voip phone and it costs $8/mo. The only thing that I miss is ESPN during football season but Sling TV has a package that includes it. I figure the savings will pay for the equipment in no time and I have something to show for it.
 
Rocky

from what i read(I may be wrong) those streams are hosted by offshore servers, it will just be a matter of time until the DRM people shut those streams down somehow?

codamedia
The problem is - the CRTC is terrible at implementing these types of things. I suspect six additional channels will end up costing more than 6 bundles. 
 

Yes, that's our biggest problem - the CRTC ostensibly claims to be looking out for the viewers/subscriber/customers, but at the end of the day, it seems to be only 'at the permission' of the big 3 here - Bell, Rogers and Shaw.
Those who have really looked into it, have seen that the 'governing body' of the CRTC is really governed by those players who are so big now, they couldn't fail even if they tried.
 
Kind of reminds me of the whole financial scandal crisis of 2008 on Wall street.
Instead of anyone going to prison, the CEOs received record bonuses - and government bailouts - all at the tax payer's expense.
 
But I digress.
 

Moshkito
...I doubt this would be different in Canada, because Disney/Espn could easily say ... who needs Canada!...

That's yet another thing. With Canada being just over only 10% of the population of America, it's hardly worth the bother for many [most] US companies.
 
As it is, they are many channels and other things that we simply don't get here. The big 3 control those tighter than a prison, and the CRTC does nothing about it.
 
The biggest dollars pull the tightest strings, it seems. What else is new, right?
 
I read on some other sites, that Canadians pay way too much and much more than countries in Europe for TV, Internet, and cell phone service.
 
And with our dollar now slipping [again] to just 70% of the American dollar, we pay much more for almost everything.
Even our gas costs more, even though we produce plenty and ship a lot of it to America cheaper than what we have to pay for it here. 
 
But I digress yet again.
 
 

bluzdog

Ham N Egz

bluzdog
A friend of mine turned me on to this guy: http://freetvee.com/ It's a pretty elegant solution. My Comcast bill is now $50/mo vs. the $212/mo that I was paying. I bought my own modem and router so I'm not renting any equipment. He built me a media PC with the internet connection and an antennae connected to it. I use Ooma for voip phone and it costs $8/mo. The only thing that I miss is ESPN during football season but Sling TV has a package that includes it. I figure the savings will pay for the equipment in no time and I have something to show for it.
 
Rocky

from what i read(I may be wrong) those streams are hosted by offshore servers, it will just be a matter of time until the DRM people shut those streams down somehow?

I'm confused and have some questions. What did you read? Who said anything about streaming? Who are the DRM guys and what are they going to shut down. How did these offshore servers get involved? Are you suggesting that I'm doing something illegal or underhanded, how did you get that from what I posted?
 
I'm only watching TV through the airwaves with an antennae. I do stream Netflix, Pandora and rent the movies from Amazon sometimes.
 
Rocky
 
 

 
No your not doing anything illegal, this particular company appears to sell a PC optimized for media playback plus an outdoor tv antenna, so you receive OTA HD transmissions, which are free , plus something akin to ROKU with free channels  built into the PC for the internet content delivery.
they just take all the work out of putting together a system.
Now what i was referring to re jailbroke Amazon sticks with KODI, which DO receive pay content free,which are a little shady, I dont think this freetv thing does that, so ur ok
AFA streaming just about any internet media content is a stream, you tube is a stream, hula, amazon, etc