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If your family doesn’t spend a ton of time in front of the television set, you might wnat to consider dropping your expensive cable or digital cable service.  The average American houshold is spending $60 a month for cable (or other multi-channel television service, like satellite) and for owners of a TiVO (or similar DVR unit), the monthly subscription runs about $12.

Wonder how you will watch your favorite shows if you drop the cable?  There are now complete episodes of almost all prime-time network television shows broadcast over the internet on the networks’ websites.  So while you may be paying $12 a month for TiVO/DVR service to record your show automatically and watch it at a more convenient time; or like it because you can “pause” live tv if interupted by the kids or making dinner – you can now watch the show when it’s convenient for you simply by visiting the networks’ website.

It’s legal. It’s free.  You view them instantly through a streaming process (which means you don’t even have to take up precious space on your computer’s harddrive because you aren’t downloading and saving them to your computer).

An increasing number of cable channels are beginning to offer their television shows over the internet as well, including MTV, TNT and TBS.  If you like the shows you can view on Nick at Night – you know, the classics, try TVland.com.

Think you’ll miss your premium channels, like HBO or Showtime?  Maybe you will, but try looking on Youtube.com – they just announced this month that they are going to be offering full-length episodes of a number of shows from your premium stations.

Also check into:

 Hulu.com, jointly owned by NBC and FOX for network and cable programs broadcast online, including Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The A Team, and The Simpsons. 

PrimeTimeRewind.tv, which offers an easy way to find full episode videos available to watch online.

If you have a specific list of shows you must watch that can’t be found online for free, you may still benefit from a service like iTunes or Amazon.com – where you can download full length episodes for $1.99 each.  On these sites, you buy the download and save to your computer rather than watch it via a streaming process; which means you can watch it as many times as you like.



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