Most American’s like me love TV. It is an integral part of our daily life. I come after work and the first thing I do is sit in front of the TV, it helps me relax after a stressful day at the office.
The problem that I am having is that U-verse (from AT&T its like cable) is so darn expensive. Since I love TV so much I have the “Crème de la Crème” of TV packages. I get HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax and Encore plus like 300 other channels. Now some of you might think this is excessive, why would I need something like that? Yes, most of it I don’t watch but there are channels that my family watches so it is worth to have all of them. But is it really?
With so many commercials out about Netfilix, I thought I would give it a try. Their product was always reviewed well. They made the rental process for DVD’s a no brainer with most rentals to your home in about a day. Their newest feature, online streaming to your computer or TV, is what made me decide to give it a try. The price was the best part. It costs $9 a month with 1 DVD rental at a time and unlimited amount of streaming.
To see if Netflix could replace my U-verse, I decided to break my families TV watching into 3 categories; Movies; Network TV and Alternative TV.
Movies
Being a huge movie buff I found the selection on Netflix to be on par with what U-Verse on demand has to offer. They both have some that each does not have to offer. Netflix currently has Starz On Demand (I hear that they might drop this) so everything that I could watch on U-Verse I can watch on Netflix. In this category I think they are dead even but since the pricing for Netflix is so much less. I would have to say Netflix is a better value for me.
Network TV
Now with Netflix you’re not able to watch any current episodes, this is a big downside for them. However they offer a huge selection of TV shows on demand. My personal favorites are the Office and 30 Rock. With some of the TV shows like Dirty Jobs you are only able to watch a select few episodes. The reason why they do this I don’t know, so I would have to say that this is a downside for them. In cases like this you could always rent the DVD to watch all the episodes. Netflix takes the cake here, it still adds tremendous value by giving me hours of TV content at a low price. Yes, I cant watch all the episodes but with still basic U-Verse I can DVR them.
Alternative TV
My wife loves to watch MTV, probably one of her favorite channels. Unlike the network TV content, which they stream quite a bit of, Netflix offers little if any streaming content of MTV or VH1. Yes, they do offer some of the Discovery Channel shows in streaming but for my wife this isn’t that important to her. In this category there is more value to keep U-Verse then Netflix.
When the trial period for Netflix ended I decided to keep it. I also decided to cancel my “Crème de la Crème” of TV packages. I have gone to the lowest one possible, a $41 savings after the Netflix subscription. That is a 21% savings from what I was paying before.