Best cable TV packages
Lots of folks fed up with high cable bills talk about cutting the cord and dropping cable TV service entirely. But what if you can’t get TV signals with an antenna? There’s a cheap alternative you might not know about—broadcast basic or limited basic cable, which costs just $15 to $20 or so a month.
These basic cable packages include the major networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and PBS) and a handful of other channels, including home shopping, educational, government, and public-access channels. You’d be giving up dozens of cable channels—CNN, HGTV, TNT, and so on—though you could catch some of that programming from streaming services, possibly a season or two behind.
For obvious reasons, cable companies don’t push their barebones packages, so be prepared to hunt around your provider’s website to find it. We checked on a few of the biggest companies’ sites to see what we could unearth. On Comcast, a search for “basic cable” turned up a comparison of limited basic versus expanded basic, but no pricing. We had to do a live chat to determine the price: $16.10 a month including one receiver, which is required.