Thinking about cutting the cord and cancelling your cable or satellite TV service? You're not alone. As Americans change their TV viewing habits from scheduled TV viewing to viewing programs on-demand, it's getting harder to justify $50, $75 or even over $100 every month just to watch TV. With online streaming services such as Netflix, VUDU, Amazon VOD and Hulu, we've got a fair amount of entertainment choices at our immediate disposal, without the need to pay an additional monthly fee to a pay TV service provider.
But if you still like to catch your local news, plus the major networks in real time, you may think you're locked into that monthly cable bill. You're not. To help those who feel nickled and dimed by the monthly TV bill, Best Buy has put together a bundle that will allow you to keep watching your local channels, without having to pay for the privilege. For a limited time, Best Buy is offering the TiVo Premiere High Definition DVR, along with an excellent longe range HDTV antenna from Antennas Direct (the ClearStream 2) for $99.99.
You can find the deal here on Best Buy's Web site:
This bundle will give you access to any of your local over the air broadcasts, with full DVR capabilities so you can pause live TV or start watching a program 10 minutes in and fast forward through the commercials. In our offices in New York City, the number of digital channels available over the air is somewhere over 40, including PBS, NBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, The CW Network, and plenty of specialty channels like the family-friendly QUBO and PBS Kids plus Spanish and Korean language channels (among others). Other metropolitan areas have more (or fewer) channels. If you're considering this option, we'd suggest visiting TVFool.com to find out what channels are available in your local area.
Is there a catch? Well, yes. As a matter of fact there is. To get the low price, you will need to sign up for TiVo's guide service, which is $19.99/month, for a minimum of one year. But after that, there is no additional commitment. You can opt instead to purchase a lifetime TiVo guide subscription for this specific box for $499.99 (but that is a bit harder to justify when the whole point here is to save money).
We spoke with Antennas Direct CEO Richard Schneider at CEDIA Expo last week, and he told us the antenna business is stronger now than ever. "We're up over 80% in sales year over year, " he said. And the Best Buy promo isn't hurting, as sales for the CS2 antenna have jumped about 50% per week since the deal first went live.
We checked online and even though the promotion just went live, they're already back-ordered online. You can order online and pick-up in store though, so check for local availability if you just can't wait to cut the cord.
More Information:
