ITCOMO

Old-School Cable TV

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Back in the day, TV over-the-air (OTA) broadcasts were transmitted from an antenna and received by your TV set. If you are older than 45 years or so (as of 2025), chances are good you watched TV through an antenna. Cable TV, hitting the mainstream in the 1980's, worked a bit differently. Instead of being transmitted OTA, the signal was brought to your home through a physical cable, hence the name.

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The big advantage of cable TV was capacity -- hundreds of channels whereas over-the-air broadcasting was limited to a small number of channels. The "airwaves", a highly precious and limited resource, are considered a public trust and are managed by the FCC. As a result, only a handful of broadcasters could operate in any given market, and they were subject to regulations. Cable TV bypassed most of that.

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Cable TV reception quality was also far better, even if your home was in a low spot or blocked by natural or man made obstacles. Interference was far less of a problem because those cables were shielded against stray radio waves and other hazards of OTA transmission.

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But, quite importantly (from the perspective of the entertainment industry), cable TV lacked the kind of federal regulations that broadcast TV was forced to adhere to, such as profane language, nudity, far more realistic violence, etc.

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"There's nothing to Watch"

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How often have you said that?

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Although cable TV has hundreds of channels, giving you a bigger choice, you could still only watch what was actively being transmitted at any particular time.

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If your favorite show aired at 8 pm, you either watched it at 8 pm or you missed it, unless you set up a VCR to record it. That's because traditional cable TV, like broadcast TV, offers only "live" feeds. You can tap into any feed (channel) you want, but you have no control over that feed -- what's scheduled to play, or when it starts.

 

Streaming goes a step further by removing the scheduling constraint entirely. Instead of waiting for a particular program to air, you can pull up nearly anything in the streaming providers library and watch it whenever you want. You can even pause while using the bathroom or making a snack. That's because each feed is transmitted just to you.

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Socket TV Unplugged

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Socket isn't the only one getting out of the TV game. CenturyLink (now Brightspeed in Missouri) had also exited the TV market a few years ago. And other telco-centric* companies around the US are also exiting the TV business at an accelerating clip.

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* Telco-centric means companies that were previously phone companies and, later, internet service providers. They don't have a history of providing TV service. In mid-Missouri, that would be CenturyLink (Brightspeed), Socket, Tranquility Internet, and one or two others.

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Cable-centric, on the other hand, are companies that were previously providing cable TV and nothing else. In mid-Mo, that would be Mediacom and Charter/Spectrum. Elsewhere, that would be Comcast, Time-Warner, and others.

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Because telco-centric companies were never really geared toward providing TV services, they weren't really that good at it. They only got into TV services in the late aughts/early teens so they could offer the classic "triple play" bundle (TV, phone, and internet) to entice customers to dump their cable TV. Problem is, their TV service often sucked. They simply lacked the experience, infrastructure, and ties to the entertainment industry to do it right.

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But even if their TV service was stellar, the writing was on the wall. Consumer sentiment was/is shifting away from bundling TV with internet service. This meant this particular business model had no growth potential.

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Since streaming-only providers are all "over the top" (meaning they deliver content via whatever existing internet service you have) then they have the significant added advantage of selling their services to a vastly larger audience. This allows Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and others to access far more customers than any one cable company or ISP ever could.

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Hence, Socket (and other telcos) have made the business decision to exit the TV market. Socket is still the clear local winner for solid internet and good customer service -- the latter being a rare thing among telecom companies today.

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Alternatives

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In addition to the (comparatively) older, more specialized premium streaming services, like Netflix, we're starting to see newer services offering a wider array of what were traditionally second tier basic cable TV channels. These are smaller, more niche channels that aren't compelling enough on their own to draw dedicated subscription revenue from the masses.

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These are all the ancillary channels like Animal Planet, Cartoon Network, Discovery, Food Network, Hallmark, History Channel, and dozens or hundreds of the like.

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But if enough of them are bundled together, and perhaps also adding local TV stations (people love those), then it might make for a pretty good replacement to what was known as "basic cable" back in the day.

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In Columbia, we have the following local TV channels:

 

• KMOS, 6, PBS

• KOMU, 8, NBC

• KRCG, 13, CBS

• KMIZ, 17, ABC

• KQFX, 22, Fox

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Streaming services that offer local TV channels include Youtube TV, DirecTV*, and possibly Hulu + LiveTV. 

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* Yes, the satellite TV provider. If you have decent internet then you don't need a dish.

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Sports fan? Fubo and YouTube TV are a good place to start.

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But be warned, sports fans are really taking a beating -- more so than everyone else. The sports industrial complex has figured out how to extort maximum dollars from avid sports fans.

 

If you only follow one sport or just your hometown teams you might be ok. But if you're a sports junkie, frequently watching a broad array of sports, you might need to sell a kidney to fund a sports subscription endowment. Perhaps a hyperbolic statement, but not by much: Getting access to a full range of televised sports can easily cost four figures per year across key sports-centric streaming platforms.

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One (of the many) reasons why sports subscription packages are so costly today is that non-sports fans have finally escaped the much-hated regional sports franchise fee that all cable TV subscribers were forced to pay. Without that subsidy, sport fans now have to pay the full cost of sports programming.

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How to Access all This

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If you have a smart TV that's connected to your internet then that's all you need. Most TVs sold since around 2015 are "smart", meaning they have a player app ecosystem and may be connected to the internet for content.

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TVs older than that, especially those sold before 2010, likely have no built-in streaming software. Those TVs require a separate streaming device to be plugged into an HDMI input port. More on this a bit further down.

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If cost is a concern, it is possible to receive local TV station digital broadcasts using an inexpensive antenna. Use this handy website to estimate the signal strength of all the local stations at your exact address.

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https://www.rabbitears.info/searchmap.php

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TVs Everywhere

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TVs have come way down in price. Enough so that having multiple TVs around the home is pretty common these days. A nice, large TV in the main viewing room, plus a TV in the kitchen, bedrooms, workshop, and even a bathroom. I had a client that mounted a TV on the wall over the foot-end of a bathtub!

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Most homes, even today, aren't hardwired for networking, so a strong wireless network is a must to get a decent signal all over the home. Unfortunately, local ISPs don't provide what I'd call decent wireless gear. Even the ISPs that offer whole-home wireless coverage generally choose cheap hardware -- and it shows.

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e.g. Socket Fiber is presently (at the time of this writing, mid 2025) offering a TP-Link Deco X20 mesh system that I have found to be suboptimal in some cases. The specs aren't that good, the management app is lacking, and performance is barely adequate for anything larger than a modest home.

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And that's a shame because Socket's fiber plant is most excellent. But they've needlessly hobbled in-home internet performance by providing at-best mid-level wireless hardware.

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Indeed, I've replaced several of these with a much superior EERO 6 Pro mesh system. And as an added bonus, you aren't paying rent for the ISP-provided system.

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External Streaming Devices

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Similarly, Socket was providing a lower-end ONN-branded streaming device for their TV customers. ONN is Walmart's house brand for TV, streaming devices, and related accessories. Walmart, of course, is a value/budget-oriented store and the products they offer conform to that ethos.

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Socket is allowing their TV customers to keep the ONN-branded streaming device for use with other services after they discontinue their TV service. But in my professional opinion, you'd be better off buying a higher quality streaming device.

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If you want the best possible streaming experience, you'd do well with the Apple TV device. It's better than pretty much any external device and, indeed, beats the streaming software built into most mid-priced and cheaper TVs. And since Apple is, relatively speaking, more privacy-focused then your viewing habits won't be sold to the highest bidder.

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Budget-oriented TV and streaming device brands like Vizio, Roku, Amazon Fire, and Chromecast, subsidize their lower prices by monetizing your viewing data. No thank you.

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If across the board performance and privacy is important to you, then combining an Apple TV streaming device, an EERO Pro wireless mesh, and a TV that's not connected to the internet* is your best bet. I can help you do this, if you'd like.

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* Why not connected to the internet? Smart TVs today are notorious for spying on your viewing habits -- what you watch and when. They're also serving targeted ads, just for you. But to do this, the TV itself needs an internet connection. If your TV is not connected to the internet then it's no longer "smart" and can't do any of these consumer-hostile things.

 

But then you need an external streaming device to take the place of the TV's built-in software. And that's where Apple TV, with its greater focus on privacy comes in.

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Oh, the Complexity​

Some of my clients, who for many years used only broadcast and cable TV, have struggled with a streaming-only TV watching experience. Old-school cable TV may seem fusty and obsolete by today's standards, but one thing it excelled at was simplicity. You had only one bill to pay and it was easy to use and navigate. And depending on how many streaming services you subscribe to today, that old cable bill might have actually been competitive. Imagine that.

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But the streaming ecosystem, by comparison, is a roiling mess. Streaming companies are constantly being created, killed-off, merged, bought and sold, which affects rates and program availability. It requires being tech and media savvy to stay on top of it all in a way that old-school cable TV never did.

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That last point, program availability, is especially problematic. Content licensing by providers is particularly liquid these days. Long running shows are sometimes split-up/fragmented by season across multiple streaming sites. Sometimes an entire show just up and moves to a new streaming provider, leaving you to figure out where it went. Or it's cancelled altogether. This is not uncommon at all.

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Click here to read more about streaming in general.

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If you aren't sure what to do or if your existing wireless network isn't providing good, speedy coverage, I can definitely help. My email address and phone number are on my home page. Click the Home link up top.

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