Snapped Cables & Broken Dishes

As a baby boomer, television was my window to the world. The crisp black and white image  brought me in contact with the globe, and in my rural Tennessee isolation that might be Tokyo or Tulsa. The growth of cable extended the length of what was the information highway (500 channels and nothing to watch) until the advent of the internet in the 1990s.

Tangled in the world wide web, the true diversity and interactive content drew me from the tv screen to the desktop monitor so that I all but closed the curtains on my youthful window to the world. There came later gadget developments. With the e-reader, the ability to download entire libraries on a small, portable device that was easy on the eyes reKindled my love for reading, and the coming of tablets, smart phones and endless apps furthered my estrangement from television.

Digital flat screens were pretty and were momentarily fascinating, but that development did
little to attract me back to television. As a medium, television was for watching an occasional movie or special event, as often as not, on dvd. I was in love with content, and I could stream that easily. Television however offered little content or flexibility.

At last, the expense of satellite and cable and the fossilized programming almost ended my
viewing altogether. I have a small flat screen in my man cave, but no cable outlet. No way was I going through the trouble of putting a hook up in there and still having little to watch. My solution was an inexpensive, easily installed little device called Roku. For much much less than many of us pay for a month of cable this one time purchase delivers a greater quality and quantity of programming than any cable package out there. Furthermore, a huge portion of it is completely on demand. First, let's remember that no one needs cable or a dish to receive broadcast signals. In today's digital tv age, that means in my area I already have access to over 30 broadcast channels and that in itself is as large of a selection as could be delivered by many cable providers a generation ago. Roku offers literally hundreds of channels beyond those with some of those channels divided into sub channels. For myself, I've selected just over 40 channels and find myself not having time to explore the content of even what I find of interest. There are some  channels that require a subscription. I have only one, Netflix, at $8 a month, and if I had that alone I'd never run out of good programming.

There are other options out there for streaming television, but for price  and selection Roku worked for me. Whatever option you choose, Dish, Comcast, and Direct TV now have serious competitors that are making an end run. As for me, for the first time in years television is becoming relevant again.