Cable service makes less sense this time of year

I turned on the television last night to have something to occupy my mind while I polished an old pair of hiking boots. The last time the television was on was ... the final day of the Masters Golf Tournament, I believe. Later, I wrote a check for the cable TV bill (bundled with phone and broadband) and wondered why I was spending so much money on a service that gets so little use.

My son told me recently that he planned to cancel his cable during these doldrums between the end of college basketball season and the beginning of college football. It seems like a practical strategy. Our television gets a good bit of use in the fall as I watch a couple of college football games (or parts of them) almost every weekend, and during college basketball season, we almost never miss a game involving our favorite team.

But the rest of the year? We hardly use the cable service at all. The only good reason for having cable is that so many sports events have migrated to cable networks. More college games are on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, Fox Sports, etc. than are on the regular broadcast channels. Without cable, a fan would miss more than half the season.

Broadcast channels also have competition now from such services as Netflix and Amazon, which can be streamed to your TV by a device such as Apple TV, a DVD player or Roku. You don't need cable service for this, just a broadband service and a home wireless network.

So why am I still subscribing to cable? Probably because, with the phone/broadband bundle, it's such a good deal.