Who wants a total TV makeover?
That simple question, posed in March as part of my ongoing Digital Life column on the ever-changing streaming TV landscape, caused a bit of a frenzy as more than a hundred readers wrote in pleading for help. One such reader, Carol Manifold, seemed readier than most. A nontraditional viewer with just a few network TV show must-haves, Carol sounded like the kind of person who used her cable subscription more out of habit than necessity.
Over the next several weeks, Carol and I exchanged phone calls and emails, and met in person two times. Truthfully, she didn't need me. She already owned an Apple TV and was using it to stream shows on Netflix and Amazon Video. Really, then, I just gave her a nudge in a direction she was already headed. That's why, today, Carol is a happy cord-cutter.
This is her story.
Currently, Carol subsists on four paid services: CBS All Access, PBS, Netflix and Amazon Video. Because she was already a subscriber to the latter two services before we started this process, her streaming additions amount to an incremental $15 per month _ $10 for the ad-free version of CBS All Access and $5 for a package from the local PBS station called "KPBS Passport."
Her total monthly bill, including internet service with Spectrum, is now around $84, compared to a former balance of $185, for an average monthly savings of about $100.
From time to time, Carol may dip into that piggy bank with one-off purchases of something called a "season pass." This would be to stream shows, such as "Feud" on FX, that she can't otherwise access through one of her other services. Season passes are available to purchase through iTunes, Google Play, Amazon and YouTube and cost around $20 a pop. The fee includes downloads for all episodes for a single season of a show, with episodes available as they're released on TV.
Perhaps even more fascinating than Carol's reprogrammed TV diet is the total transformation of her viewing behaviors. The 62-year-old isn't entirely consuming entertainment like someone 40 years her junior _ smartphone viewing isn't her new normal _ but her habits are becoming more millennial-like.
"I think more actively about what my options are and about what I want to watch," she told me.
That means no longer turning on the TV for background noise, flipping through channels to see what's on or watching what's on the DVR just because there's stuff there. Basically, she's making active choices instead of passive ones; no longer conflating someone else's programming choices with her own.
Carol's media metamorphosis wasn't the result of an intentional choice to act more like a youngster, nor does it feel completely comfortable just yet. Rather, the loss of the familiar cable TV format forced this new level of consciousness.
"Our TV habits, I think, are very ingrained and so it's taking a while to change over ... but it's better to be more mindful. I'm making different choices. I'm less in the habit of just watching TV. Sometimes I just read a book or go out in the yard."
And when she does watch "TV," it's not always TV. Take her new found appreciation of YouTube.
"I sing in a couple of choirs and I was looking for things (on YouTube) that I could learn my music from ... and I came across a documentary about Benjamin Britten, the composer, and it was fascinating," Carol said.
"I never even would have looked for that."
When I first met Carol, via email, she said she wanted to cut her bill by at least 50 percent, and she expressed interest in "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," "Masterpiece Classics" on KPBS, "Feud" on FX, as well as movies on Turner Classic Movies. She also called out favorite shows such as "Grace and Frankie" and "House of Cards" on Netflix, and "Mozart in the Jungle" on Amazon Prime, as she was already a customer of those two subscription video services.
I selected her for a TV makeover because I knew she was overspending with Spectrum and I felt like she would be just as happy without traditional cable, and likely even without a streaming alternative such as Sling TV or PlayStation Vue. The one line in her email that stood out: "Most other things I watch just because they're there and it's easy, but I wouldn't miss them all that much if I didn't have them."
So Carol's initial homework was to check out two streaming options: CBS All Access, an all-you-can-stream app from CBS, and Warner Archive, a lesser-known subscription service for classic movies and TV shows. CBS All Access turned out to be a winner while Warner Archive was not. The latter just didn't appear to offer enough value, especially considering her existing Netflix subscription.
Meanwhile, feeling antsy and ambitious, Carol found the free PBS app on her Apple TV, and signed up for the members-only "KPBS Passport" service, which requires a $5 monthly donation, to unlock the full catalog of PBS programming.
With the digital foundation laid, I met Carol at her home and we determined that, though she was experiencing streaming hiccups with the CBS app, she was definitely ready to cut the cord. The very next day, she returned her cable box to a nearby Spectrum facility.
When I went back for a second visit, Carol was satisfied with her new setup save for some internet buffering issues, which we went on to troubleshoot.
Part of the reason Carol's TV makeover went so seamlessly _ and, realistically, I don't expect the other two to go as smoothly _ is because of the aforementioned CBS All Access app, which the broadcast network released around two years ago. The service, which costs $6 a month with ads or $10 a month without, is closing in on 1.5 million subscribers, according to statements made by CBS CEO Leslie Moonves at a February conference.
As far as content goes, All Access offers everything CBS currently broadcasts, plus the network's past material going back more than 50 years, for a total of 8,500 on-demand episodes. Subscribers also get a live stream of their local CBS affiliate, which includes NFL games.
Originally designed for CBS super fans (as opposed to cord-cutters), All Access is the only way to get the new series, "The Good Fight," the digital-only spin-off of "The Good Wife," as well as the upcoming "Star Trek: Discovery" series, slated for a fall debut.
"The product originated from the realization that there were different levels of CBS fans," Jim Lanzone, the CEO of CBS Interactive, told me. "For some people, it's OK to have the last five episodes, but for others ... they wanted more from us. This product is for them."
All Access is a bit of an outlier in the streaming universe, as the network's broadcast rivals originally opted to put their content libraries online through Hulu, whereas CBS was initially a holdout.
Now Lanzone describes All Access as a hybrid between CBS and Showtime. Or, in other words, a premium cable channel that lives in a digital TV utopia where there are no rules or ratings.
Of course, All Access becomes useless if load times and other hiccups destroy the quality of the stream, particularly when watching live TV.
And Carol was rightly perplexed, especially as the Spectrum representative upsold her on a faster internet package at a 12-month promotional rate of $45 per month _ download speeds up to 100Mpbs versus 20Mpbs _ when she went to return her cable box. That rate will jump to $65 a month in a year, so she might evaluate other internet options at that time.
Realistically, she had sufficient speed to stream before the boost, so we went through a Wi-Fi router checklist:
Is the router outdated? Nope. Carol's Apple Airport Extreme supports the latest Wi-Fi standards, but she did need to update her firmware, which was an easy software fix.
Is the router in the center of her home? No. This, I suspect, was the real culprit of her buffering issues. Carol had the router tucked away on the floor in a remote part of her home. The quickest remedy was to get the router off the floor. Now it's on a desk.
Is the router out in the open? Not exactly, but now that it's off the floor, the router seems to be performing as expected.
The end result is that the mid-stream freeze Carol was experiencing is now a thing of the past.
Carol's seemingly happy-go-lucky story did involve one nearly disastrous hurdle.
When she canceled her cable TV subscription, she also had to switch the account to her name. Her late husband had been the primary account holder and she had put off changing the account for fear of complications. Unfortunately, in the process of the account transition, the email account included with her Spectrum service was shuttered and Carol found herself without access to more than 4,000 email messages, some of high-level significance.
Thankfully, after several visits to multiple Spectrum stores, Carol's email account was restored and her deleted messages were retrieved.
All's well that ends well, right?
Perhaps.
This TV makeover is complete, but Carol's story isn't exactly over. She must now continue her cable-free lifestyle without my hands-on assistance. I'll check back in with her in a few months to see if this new entertainment diet sticks or if cable finds it way back into her home.
