We refuse to pay for Dish and cable will never come down our road (too rural). So after the digital conversion we get only two stations, both PBS. 5 different programming channels between them.
Most of the time we wind up watching a video. PBS runs a lot of reruns and they seem to be fundraising every weekend lately.

I know you live in Ohio but were you from NY??????? If so where???????

Netflix is great but I canceled my subscription a while back because I had caught up on all the movies I wanted to see. I can always reactivate my account. But I have also discovered Redbox. It's a vending machine for movies. They have them in several grocery stores and Walmart and Walgreens. I live two blocks from four Redbox machines. $1 per night. You have to set up your account online first and it's best to reserve a movie online before you go to the box to pick it up. They don't have as many movies as Netflix but it's still better than what's on TV most of the time.

We live in a very rural area of PA and we have free TV. Have since 1986. We live on top of a hill, point our antennas east and get the best HD tv, and it is free. All the major networks plus extras. There are also many web sites like Hulu to watch many shows for free. We just hook up the computer through a HDMI or RGB cable and watch it on the big screen. I did a search one day and found 64 episodes of Sky King for free. http://www.americanflyers.net/entertainment/skyking.asp
There are web sites like http://www.archive.org that have old radio shows and old kinescope recordings from the very early days of television. Why pay when it is free.
As you can guess I like free!!

Peach, I grew up in Utica and lived for many years in Syracuse.

Twisted- Funny you should start this thread b/c last night I was home alone, with no game on so I flipped channels. Haven't done that in a loooong time and noticed a LOT of violent and just plain creepy shows. I've really been out of the loop. I ended up on PBS and laughed my head off over the British comedy "Keeping up Appearances" That show always cracks me up!!! I love British humor :D
Oh yes, Hulu is great! Lot of the old shows.

Well I guess I will take a nap for now. And catch the news at 10pm or 11. Cause even the news repeats on the weekend. Go figure!

If it wasn't for Speed's coverage of F1, I would very seriously consider canceling our cable service. I have been unemployed for the past few years, so have seen just about every made for TV movie, real life crime show etc. multiple times. There is very little in the way of new programming and what there is seems to be geared mainly towards people under thirty - very disappointing.

We have "Basic" cable, and I quite agree - I'm seriously thinking of canceling it - but I'm the holdout, not the kids! We also use the internet, and I got "Roku Box" for my birthday. You hook it up to you TV, and as long as you have WiFi in the house (I have teens, so I do!) you can get Netflix instant watch, rent movies from Amazon.com, all the news and sports you could watch, plus they are always adding new stations - like an old movie one - although they only have about 6. You can also get Netflix on the wii or some other game systems.

Some years ago, in the early 2000s, I got mad at the ugliness of something Idol with that creepy nasty guy on the end, and finally asked myself just why on earth was I paying good money to watch what I could see just as well on Video or CD or on my computer. Cancelled the whole thing and have not been sorry yet. I have masses of videos, bought and copied from TV years ago, and lots of CDs. Last movie I saw was a copy of Avatar, loved that one, and ET.

The rare times i see TV in other's homes I find that I have no desire to even start my own cable again. I read, I sew, I work around the house and read news on the daily paper and on computer.

It's been years, and my house is soothing and peaceful without all that violence and filthy mouthed actors they think is vitally necessary for them to be seen on TV.

Susan Margaret,
You would probably like "Doc Martin" and "Dr. Who" too.
Sharon W.