For some cable cutters, getting out of the cable isn’t just a lower TV bill. It’s also about escaping advertising.
When you leave cable or satellite television, you can set a plan where you never have to go through commercial breaks again. While the right mix of streaming hardware and services may cost a bit more, the added expense is worth it if you hate being interrupted by ads.
Here’s what to consider for an ad-free cable cut setup:
Use ad-free streaming services
The most obvious way to avoid ads like cable cutter is to choose broadcast services without commercials. That way, your viewing experience will never be interrupted by annoying advertising breaks.
The list of ad-free streaming services is long, so subscribing to many of them at the same time would waste an absurd amount of money. My advice, as always, is to choose one or two “basic” services that cover most of your TV viewing, and then add or remove others monthly.
As I pointed out last week, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu have the largest selections of TV broadcast shows by far. Netflix and Prime are ad-free by default, with the former costing $ 13 per month for HD video or $ 16 per month for 4K HDR, and the latter costing $ 9 per month for video only and $ 120 per year with other benefits Prime (free shipping, etc.) Hulu’s commercial-free service costs $ 12 per month, double the price of its standard plan.
Ben Patterson / IDGNetflix is just one of many ad-free streaming services for cable cutters.
From there, you can start connecting additional streaming services based on your needs and interests:
- Disney + ($ 7 per month or $ 70 per year) is great for Marvel and Star Wars fans, as well as family programming.
- HBO Max ($ 15 per month) combines HBO’s prestigious programming with other content from the WarnerMedia catalog.
- CBS All Access ($ 10 per month or $ 100 per year with no ads) provides next-day access to CBS shows and an increasing number of originals.
- Peacock ($ 10 per month, to be released on July 15) has NBC shows and movies from Universal.
- Showtime ($ 11 per month), Starz ($ 9 per month), and Epix ($ 6 per month) have the same programming as their cable channel counterparts.
- Apple TV + ($ 5 a month, $ 50 a year, or free for a year with a new Apple device) offers a small but growing number of original movies and shows.
- YouTube Premium ($ 12 per month) removes YouTube ads on all of your streaming devices.
Some streaming services are available for free, even without ads. Hoopla and Kanopy allow you to watch free movies and shows with a library card (if your local library participates), while the PBS and PBS Kids apps offer many videos on demand from the public broadcast. (An optional PBS passport donation of $ 5 per month entitles you to a larger selection.)
If you still need more to watch, there are even more streaming services to fill specific niches. Some notable examples that are completely commercial-free:
- Food Network Kitchen ($ 5 per month or $ 40 per year) has cooking tours and ad-free episodes of many Food Network shows, and is currently free for one year if you sign up through an Amazon device.
- Criterion Channel ($ 11 per month or $ 100 per year) offers classic and critically acclaimed feature films, short themes, and documentaries. (Here is our review).
- Crunchyroll ($ 8 per month) is the main service for the anime.
- DC Universe ($ 8 per month or $ 75 per year) has superhero movies, shows, and animated series.
- BET + ($ 10 per month) has original black culture movies and shows, plus some content from the TV network.
- Shudder ($ 6 a month or $ 57 a year) will scare you off with horror and suspense movies.
- Britbox ($ 7 per month or $ 70 per year) and Acorn TV ($ 5 per month or $ 50 per year) have movies and shows from England. (Here is a useful comparison).
- Smithsonian Channel Plus ($ 5 per month) has documentaries and nature series.
- Hallmark Movies Now ($ 6 a month or $ 60 a year) has many of the same movies as cable channels.
Choose live TV wisely
Purely ad-free streaming services like Netflix are nice, but they won’t let you watch programming from real cable channels. For that, you will need a live TV streaming service like YouTube TV, Sling TV, AT&T TV Now or Philo.
All of these services include cloud-based DVRs, so you can record live shows and skip commercials, but there are a few caveats: Hulu + Live TV, for example, charges an additional $ 10 per month for skip features. ads, bringing the total price to $ 65 per month. And with AT&T TV Now, there’s no thumbnail visual preview when you fast-forward through the recordings, so you can’t easily identify when ad breaks are over.
Jared Newman / IDGIf you want to fast-forward through ads, a visual preview is essential.
Manually skipping ads will be a hassle, regardless of the service you choose. Given the rising costs of channel bundles and the increasing amount of content available elsewhere (see previous section), you might consider surviving without them.
Consider shooting your own DVR
If your plans to cut the cable involve an antenna, an over-the-air DVR can give you superpowers that bypass ads.
Tablo’s Dual Lite ($ 140) and Quad DVR ($ 200) record shows from an antenna, and then they can stream the video to the Tablo app on a wide range of smart TVs and streaming players. Once you’ve recorded a show, you can also automatically skip the ads, though it will cost a bit more: Tablo DVR subscriptions cost $ 5 per month, $ 50 per year, or $ 150 for life; Ad skipping costs $ 2 a month or $ 20 a year on top of that.
Jared Newman / IDGSome over-the-air DVRs, including Tablo, can automatically detect ads and skip them directly.
Plex DVR works in a similar way, recording from an antenna and streaming the video to the Plex application. But instead of skipping commercials, Plex can directly remove them from the recording. The hardware for this can be expensive: you need to supply your own media server device, TV tuner and storage, and a Plex Pass subscription for recording costs $ 4 per month, $ 40 per year or $ 120 for life, but it is a powerful solution once you have set it up.
DVR channels are more expensive at $ 8 a month or $ 80 a year, but the software is a little more sophisticated overall. It supports automatic commercial jumps and has an extremely good trick: if you are subscribed to a pay TV service and have a login for streaming apps, you can also record cable channel broadcasts. The hardware requirements are similar to those of Plex, but with enough technical means, you can configure channels inexpensively on a Raspberry Pi microcomputer.
Finally, TiVo is still around, and its over-the-air DVRs have the same SkipMode button as their cable box. The only problem is that TiVo now includes pre-roll ads in your recordings, although you may be able to get rid of them if you complain.
Avoid streaming devices with banner ads
Even if the programs you are watching do not have commercials, your streaming device could still hover over some ads to access them.
Roku devices show a big ad next to their list of apps, taking up about a third of the screen. While this doesn’t directly prevent navigation, it leaves less room for apps, so you’ll have to scroll further to find what you want. The shortcut buttons on Roku remote controls are also a form of advertising, and you cannot reprogram them.
RokuWith Roku’s big banner ads, fewer apps fit on the home screen.
Amazon Fire TV devices also have advertisements in the form of “sponsored” content rows on the home screen. You’ll need to navigate past these ads while searching for recommendations. The à la carte purchases and rentals that Amazon suggests on your home screen are also a form of advertising.
If these tactics bother you, an Nvidia Shield TV or Apple TV will provide a cleaner experience, with no ads to obstruct their respective home screens. It would give the Nvidia Shield TV a slight edge here, if only because Apple is self-promoting through its universal guide app (also confusingly called Apple TV), but you can easily bypass that menu with a tweak.
But as with everything else, the ad-free experience doesn’t come cheap. Both Nvidia Shield TV and Apple TV start at $ 150.
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