The 12 cable television programs that I want to watch are delivered by 5 different basic cable stations: Discovery, the History Channel, USA, TNT and Lifetime.
Using my Excel table of the cable TV shows I want to watch
without subscribing to cable, I began my research using 4 popular video
streaming services: Netflix, Hulu Plus,
Amazon Prime, and iTunes. The research
took me about two hours.
I created columns in my Excel table next to each cable
show: a column each for Netflix, Hulu
Plus, Amazon Prime and iTunes. My cable
television shows are:
American Pickers (Discovery)
Being Human (Syfy)
Deadliest Catch (Discovery)
Defiance (Syfy)
Falling Skies (TNT)
Gold Rush (Discovery)
Mythbusters (Discovery)
Pawn Stars (History)
Project Runway (Lifetime)
Psych (USA)
Royal Pains (USA)
Survivorman (Discovery)
I am already a Netflix subscriber, but I signed-up for the
7-day free trial on Hulu Plus and the 30-day free trial on Amazon Prime in
order to see whether I could view each of these programs on each of the four
video streaming services (iTunes being the fourth.)
Here’s what I found:
Netflix: I cannot
watch new episodes of any of my 12 programs using Netflix. I can watch (some) past seasons for 6 of my
12 programs.
Hulu Plus: I can
watch new episodes for 5 of my 12 programs on Hulu Plus, but only on my
computer. That’s because Hulu doesn’t
always buy the full re-broadcasting rights for a show it offers. Note, too, that you can’t watch the current
episode of a show until a few days after its original airdate. I was able, however, to stream my shows to my
TV via Airplay from my MacBook Pro to my Apple TV. Hulu Plus has some past-season episodes for
some of my shows.
Amazon Prime: I can
watch current episodes (after the same airdate delay mentioned above) for 2 of
my 12 programs on Amazon Prime for no additional fee beyond the annual Prime
membership ($79). I can watch new
episodes of the remaining 10 shows on Amazon Prime at a cost of $2.99 per
episode (there’s a slight per-episode break if you buy a season subscription).
iTunes: I can watch
current episodes (subject to the airdate delay) of all 12 of my shows for
$2.99/episode, or I can purchase a season pass for each show (varies, between
$20 and $38 for each season pass.)
So, looking at my list of cable shows, here’s how they
fared:
American Pickers (Discovery) – Can only get by paying via
Prime or iTunes
Being Human (Syfy) – Can get via Hulu Plus (computer) or
Prime without surcharge
Deadliest Catch (Discovery) – Can only get by paying via
Prime or iTunes
Defiance (Syfy) – Can get via Hulu Plus (computer)
Falling Skies (TNT) – Can get via Prime without surcharge
Gold Rush (Discovery) – Can only get by paying via Prime or iTunes
Mythbusters (Discovery) – Can only get by paying via Prime
or iTunes
Pawn Stars (History) – Can only get by paying via Prime or
iTunes
Project Runway (Lifetime) – Can get via Hulu Plus (computer)
Psych (USA) – Can get via Hulu Plus (computer)
Royal Pains (USA) – Can get via Hulu Plus (computer)
Survivorman (Discovery) – Can only get by paying via Prime
or iTunes
General Observations:
- 6 of the 12 cable TV programs I want to watch without paying for cable TV are carried by either the Discovery Channel or by the History Channel. Neither channel provides episodes on its website, and neither channel appears to serve its shows to Hulu or to Netflix. The only way to get these 6 programs is to buy them from Amazon Prime or from iTunes.
- I can watch new episodes of 5 of my 12 cable programs using Hulu Plus. I think that’s worth the $7.99/mo. subscription fee.
- Netflix is kind of useless for current episodes of cable TV programs, but I already subscribe to Netflix for movies and for their original programming, which is increasing and it’s becoming really good.
- Amazon Prime gets me 2 of my 12 shows without additional surcharge over the $79 annual fee (that works out to about $6.59/mo. and you also get free 2-day shipping for stuff you buy on Amazon.) One of the two programs overlaps with Hulu Plus (Being Human on Syfy), so the value of Prime is one cable TV show. That’s an average of 2 episodes a month over the course of a year, or 24 episodes. The annual fee for Prime is $79; a season pass on iTunes for Falling Skies is $24. Looks like Prime is out unless I buy lots of stuff on Amazon and I want to save on shipping.
Current savings with 18 of my 25 programs (now adding Hulu
Plus): $74.01/mo. + one-time cost of
digital antenna
Next Article: What if I Can’t Get the Cable TV Shows I Want Using Hulu Plus, Netflix or Amazon Prime?
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