Television, in today’s world, has as many facets as there are colors in a rainbow. You no longer have to stick to a single platform to catch all the latest news from the Tinsel town. Take the FOX network, for instance. You can watch the content it has to offer in a number of ways:
- By including the channel and all its extensions such as FOX News or FOX Sports in your cable TV package.
- By catching the channel broadcast from a local station via an HDTV antenna.
- By heading to the gargantuan network’s site and watching the live episodes online.
- By subscribing to any of the streaming services such as HULU, Sling TV or Fubo TV and adding FOX to your collection.
- By downloading the FOX NOW app and accessing the best of primetime from there.
So on and so forth. From among these ways, two primarily stand out and are at the center of this article. Namely, cable TV and streaming TV. With cable, you can easily flip through the local and big network channels like AMC, CBS and HGTV as they air serial episodes and movies in real-time. Whereas, with video streaming, you can sift through the vast libraries of movies and TV shows, categorized based on genres, in your own time. These are just surface definitions. To see which service wins the battle of your heart in 2020, check out the individual cases for both cable TV and streaming TV below.
Why Cable TV Service?
People often wonder what makes the traditional pay-tv so great. And the answer lies in the way your cable TV service runs hundreds of entertaining channels round the clock, distortion-free. Not only that, if you pair your internet with TV from the same cable company, you get to enjoy massive discounts and the convenience of paying for both services in a single monthly bill. With a cable TV line, you already know how the programming works, which is not always the case with streaming services where you have to understand a whole new interface.
Some cable companies are also working towards offering consumers stripped-down plans at cheaper rates. For example, Cox has a $35 cable TV plan that falls in line with many streaming plans, starting at $40 per month. Moreover, major providers are now replacing old, bulky cable boxes with advanced, state-of-the-art set-top boxes, which come with modern interfaces, HDR, Net-flix, and other streaming apps integration, Alexa or Google Assistant compatibility, voice command recognition and the ability to run your personal Cox on-demand titles, let’s say, in larger-than-life 4K quality. Sounds cool, right?
On the other hand, cable TV services are not without their characteristic flaws. According to an S&P Global Market Intelligence unit, the average cable TV bill for the year 2018 exceeded $1200, which broke down to around $100 per month! And that’s just for the television service. People don’t expect to pay such a hefty amount when they sign up, but they do end up emptying their pockets way more, and it’s not a good sign. Plus, a majority of cable providers have started imposing new fees in the form of “regional sports” & “broadcast TV” on the customers, which they previously included in the base rate, severely upsetting budgets left and right.
Why Streaming TV Service?
Where before people had no say in the channel selection and suffered at the hands of a monopolistic cable company in their neighborhoods, now they can easily solve both problems with one shot: streaming TV. This cable-alternative empowers the customers to pay for only the channels that they do watch, nothing more and nothing less. Streaming TV services offer multiple tiers of programming for corresponding prices, which are half of what cable TV plans cost on the average. They also remove the rental of cable & DVR boxes from the equation, introducing streaming apps and cloud DVRs for the ultimate ease of the viewers. Moreover, the clarity and transparency that a streaming service bill gives is a blessing in front of the convolutions and hidden charges, which cable bills dictate to the consumers.
But, here again, there’s a catch. Certain streaming TV services limit the number of users in a household that can stream content at one time. Net-flix gives out only four to five screens to one viewer. Not only that, streaming TV depends on the stability of your internet connection to work, and can suffer from speed lags if the network isn’t consistent.
Final Verdict
Both cable TV and streaming TV services have their pros and cons. As you may see, traditional pay-tv is ideal for large households of ardent TV lovers, whereas, streaming TV is perfect for a one to two-person family who’s more inclined towards saving expenses. In the end, it really depends on your unique needs and budgets.
