The final tally on our Dish cord-cutting

A few changes since my last post on this topic…

With the antenna in the equipment closet, we received 35 channels. After hiding channels we have no interest in (a children’s cartoon channel, Home Shopping Network, etc.), we were down to 19 channels. I wanted to see if we could increase that without resorting to putting the antenna on the roof or in the attic, so I bought Channel Master’s matching Titan 2 medium gain pre-amplifier, for $76.42 including shipping. Alas, it didn’t help any.

Our Dish bill increased to $130.13/month. Adjusting for one Hopper DVR for a fair comparison, that’s $118.13/month.

Our T2x reprogramming didn’t cost us anything.

So…

Total cost of Dish over three years: $4,253, if there are no more Dish price increases. (Hahahahahaha!)

Total cost of OTA hardware: $542 + $76.42 = $618.

For the cost comparison, I’ll assume we subscribe to HBO NOW ($14.99/month) and Hulu Plus ($7.99/month).

Total cost of OTA over three years: $618 +( 3 * 12 * (14.99 + 7.99)) = $1,445.

Total savings over three years: $2,808.

With everything installed, we ironically find ourselves using Apple TV more often. But that’s OK, because we’re still saving $2,808 over three years. This is a total win.