My Reply to the USA Today Anti-Cord Cutting Story


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Cutting the cable connection to coax connector illustrating retired people cancelling cable TV service

Cutting the cable connection to coax connector illustrating retired people cancelling cable TV serviceIt’s that time of the year and a cheap anti-cord cutting story is out again. This time it is coming from USA Today.

The author brings out the same scare tactics and works hard to ignore any facts in his reporting. In his story he is trying to say cord cutting costs as much as cable. So let’s break down this post and show how the author Jefferson Graham who is a technology columnist for USA Today can save $1,500 every year by being a cord cutter.

#1 Internet Is Not a New Cord Cutting Cost

In Graham’s story he counts Internet in the cost of cord cutting. You count Internet against the cost of pay TV; however, do people cancel Internet if they get pay TV?

The truth is you cannot count Internet as an exclusive cost to cord cutters. Now on average you do get a $10 Internet savings if you bundle so you could at most count $10.

So we just cut $40 to $50 from his claim cord cutting costs $87. Even from our own chat as you said you pay about $200 a month for your bundle deal.

#2 You Don’t Have to Subscribe to Everything…         

In our chat on YouTube’s Facebook page Jefferson Graham talked about how cord cutting costs more if you subscribe to everything. (Now on the market and coming up.)

The thing about cord cutting is you do not need to subscribe to everything. You can pick and choose what you want to subscribe to. Even better most cord cutting services offer a free trial. So you can test it before you pay for it.

Gone are the days when cable says what you have to watch and when you will watch it. Cord cutting lets you pick what you want and pay for what you want.

The truth is most cable subscribers are already paying for streaming services. Jefferson Graham is a perfect example of that. During our chat he said not only is he paying $200 a month for his cable bundle but he also pays for three different streaming services.

So when you look at being a cord cutter you also need to count in what you already pay for. For Jefferson Graham to become a cord cutter the only new cost is $12 for Hulu. (He said he already paid for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and CBS All Access.) We say Hulu because he said he struggles to get over-the-air TV with an antenna.

Phone Savings

If he went with Ooma for phone he could drop the $50 he said he paid for phone down to $10.

So now we are looking at a total cost of $75 a month down from the $200 he is paying now. That is a $125 savings every month. Over a two-year contract with a pay-TV provider he would save $3,000.

Live TV

If he really wanted to have live TV he could add Sling TV for $20 or $25 a month and still save $100 every month.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at what our readers say about cord cutting savings. Don’t trust our readers? Take a look at what the Wall Street Journal has to say.

I did get a chance to chat with Jefferson Graham about this story and you can find our chat here:

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