How to quit cable TV and save big bucks?

My name is Axel Weiss, I am the Owner, Broker and Realtor of Sea to Sky Realty in West Bradenton, Florida. My wife and I are international Real Estate Brokers, located right on Riverview Blvd in West Bradenton. Many of our clients are asking how to get the best and most economical TV service here in Bradenton. Cable TV sucks. Yes, and there is limited competiton, too many ads.
So my first question is: Ask yourself, what kind of TV do you really need?

Some may watch TV every day or night, others just watch movies, other never really watch any TV..

So depending on your needs, first step is to limit your Cable (Spectrum) or Fiber (Frontier) service to internet only. 100 MBit is fine, more is always better but not worth extra cost. More and more people are ditching landline phone and TV for good nowadays. Depending on your proivider this will reduce your monthly price to $80 (Frontier) or $65 / $70 Spectrum. With Sepctrum get your own modem. This will save you $5 per month, a really good modem is around $50 so it pays for itself in a few months. Don’t forget to ask for a current speed with any of these providers. Usually they do not upgrade your speed automatically, you have to ask for it. So it is possible you are at 1/10 of the speed for the same or higher cost. Remember: Cable companies have the worst customer service in America. Period.

Now let’s discuss your needs! There are several levels of service we can address TV:

1.) OTA antenna

Brings you all local channels (and many channels you probably never heard of before) usually with a good picture quality and most importantly totally free (except for cost of antenna and install $50-200 one time charge). Here is a good website for information what antenna to buy and which channels you will get in Bradenton: Antennaweb

2.) Firestick or Roku (the player)

Both are media players. They are cheap and easy to use.
If you are (already) subscribing to Amazon Prime you should get a Amazon Fire stick. You will get bunch of movies absolutely free. Device is $30 +/-.
Otherwise I recommend getting a Roku player or a Roku TV (best if you need a new TV).

3.) Sling TV, Playstation Vue, Hulu with Live TV or Youtube TV

Now you have to decide for old fashioned TV (like you were used when subscribing to cable):

With Firestick you can get all services except for Youtube TV (Youtube TV has nothing to do with Youtube. Yes, it’s the same owner and so, but Youtube TV are the channels you were used to when subscribing to cable. So you need a subscribtion here, too). Why can’t you get Youtube TV with an Amazon Fire Stick? Because Amazon and Google (owner of Youtube) are in bad mood, i.e. divorce stage.

Anyways, with a Roku Player you can get all 4.

Now what is the difference?

Well, Sling TV starts at $20-25 with limited channels each and you cannot share with a friend from a different location. Playstation Vue and Hulu are both not shareable (I tried all services) but have good channels. Youtube TV has limited channels but is shareable from different locations with friend. So the subscription fee becomes very reasonable…

My advice today (Dec 2018) is Youtube TV. You get 4+ parallel streams from different locations. So you can share your subscription with one or two friend. Very good!

And Youtube diffinitely has the best VCR / timeshift functionality and many local channels.

Sea to Sky Realty

The Florida Real Estate Company with the GERMAN Twist!
Axel and Bea Weiss
Bradenton, Florida 34205
(941) 866 1666
www.bradentonbroker.com