Last Day of Cable

Or at least of an expanded cable package. If you've been reading the FP Gal you know that we're downgrading to basic cable. This has been in discussion for a long time and I'm fine with it, though I'll some of the channels. My TV watching revolves around four or five network shows, baseball and football. Add in 'The Soup' and 'Doctor Who' and I'm pretty well covered. The rest is mostly filler (old sit-coms, some documentaries, movies and the music channels).
To watch the cable shows we're paying something like $65 extra dollars a month. That's a pretty high price and not one that we're willing to pay anymore. I bet this same type of calculation is going on all over the country. I wonder what a comparison of Comcast customers between June 2008 and June 2009 would look like.
Watching sports is a biggie for me and we'll no longer have ESPN. I haven't watched as much of them in the past few years because I get usually get much better analysis somewhere online. I'll miss the Sunday night baseball games and the Monday night football games. MNF has kind of been a casualty of CBS's Monday night line-up. Sunday nights in the summer are pretty much a graveyard of television and I'll simply have to spend that time doing something else.
One big casualty for me is the MLB network. They just started up on Jan 1 of this year and they've become something of a favorite of mine. During the offseason they play a ton of random 'great games' from the past. (Currently they're showing Tom Seaver's 300th win, a White Sox/Yankees game from '85.) The network has given me tons of baseball to watch during what is normally a very dead month. I'll be sorry to miss their in-season stuff as I bet it's very good.
We'll still have WGN which gives me 25 or so White Sox games this year. We're talking about getting MLB.tv which lets me watch out of market games on the computer for about $110 per year. Interestingly, I won't be able to watch many Twins games as we won't have them on basic cable and they'll be blacked out even if we do the computer thing. That means I've been saved from Dick and Bert!
One big plus from the downgrade is that we'll be getting rid of some stuff that we want to keep away from Relia. That means no celebrity nonsense or MTV. One of my jobs as a Dad is to teach Relia (and any future children) that image isn't nearly as important as substance and that will be easier without her watching shows that scream the exact opposite.
Both the FP Gal and I lived for at least a year without TV in the past. Coincedentally, we both did it in 1997. We'll probably read more, use the Wii more and of course, play with Relia. All while saving money. Right now that sounds pretty good. Let's hope it still does a month from now...