Time to cut the cable?

My Comcast bill is an astounding $180 per month. Unlike some, I have nothing negative to say about their service. In fact, I can’t remember it going out or having any trouble at all. It has been more stable than the electricity in my apartment.

However, I don’t know if it is worth $180 per month. The rundown of my package:

Cable: all basic channels, expanded channels HBO, Showtime and the HD package and DVR.
Internet: Basic lowest tier service- which is actually still VERY fast.

Now, what do I really watch?

Entourage, 30 Rock, Mad Men, MSNBC, CNN Religiously. Otherwise? I’ll catch an episode of Weeds or HBO movies or The Hills.

Recently, more and more services have been going online- either for free, or available for purchase through iTunes.

So, how hard would it be to give up cable? For this purpose, I would still need cable internet, but that runs about $50 per month, so I could eliminate a big part of my bill.

Any of the network shows (30 Rock, Office, Project Runway, Hills) I could get on NBC.com, Mtv.com or Hulu.com. If I wanted higher quality HD video I could purchase it from iTunes. Then, I could run a VGA cable from my computer to my TV and watch it pretty easily.

For pay services like AMC’s Mad Men or Entourage I would have to wait for it to come to iTunes (which with Mad Men is next day) or buy it on DVD when the season comes out a few months later. Not too bad of a deal really.

The biggest problem would come from sporting events. However, friends’ houses or hell even bars would work for big events like the superbowl.

News is extremely easy – any website. Plus, I can even get my liberal talking points from Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.com on video the night of!

Movies that I catch on HBO could be covered by a Netflix subscription – easily cheaper than HBO and Showtime are currently.

The hardest part would be quality. For any free service, the video would be on my tiny laptop screen, probably around 480 dpi. Certainly quality will improve with time.

Anyone actually living without the cable? Hows it working for you?