The head of the Feral Marketing Department and I were chatting this morning about TV and shows, and he mentioned that he’s probably cancelling HBO at least, perhaps until the Sopranos are back on. I’ve been thinking for awhile about my own TV-watching habits for awhile as well.

When I moved here I put the bulk of my crap (including amazingly oversized TV) into storage. I did pick up a small-ish set for PS2 playing in the guest house, but for the most part I haven’t missed my TV at all. Part of the reason is that not having DirecTV installed here has made me watch a hell of a lot less television. Another reason is all the “stuff” that I have going on as well; relationship, biking, climbing, poker, etc. I’m house-shopping now, and giving serious consideration to not getting any sort of pay service when I find a place.

Right now there are 3 shows that I try and watch on a regular basis: 24, The Daily Show, and The Simpsons. I’ll catch the occasional CSI or L&O with Kim at her place (with her huge rabbit ears and no cable), but for the most part that’s it. I’ve found that all my TV needs can be met by the Intarweb, even with my woefully crappy connection. I have Azureus running with some filters set up, so when I get on the computer Tuesday through Friday mornings, I’ll have last night’s Daily Show sitting and ready for me to watch. 24 I can either catch at Kim’s, or I’ll have that downloaded (with very good quality, I might add) a day or so after it airs (it’d be faster if my connection speed were better). When the new seasons of Sopranos and SFU air, I’ll be able to add a filter for those and see them next-day as well. I’m not alone in doing this, either. You can just take a look at any of the big TV Torrent sites and see all the popular shows pop up within hours of airing, sometimes sooner if they can catch a wild feed.

All that combines to mean that I’m not sure I feel like forking over the extra money every month. Granted, my TiVo has been sad and lonely in storage, but since they’re on deathwatch anyway I don’t know how relevant that is. I’ve seen the idea elsewhere, but I really think TiVo needs to allow you to do something similar; have an internet connection and act as a BitTorrent aggregator to bring you down long tail shows.

One reason to get cable might be to be able to bundle high-speed web access in the package, making both more affordable. Another could be for HDTV, although I would have been more inclined to go for an all-HD service like Voom, which apparently is about ready to take a dump. I’m not even sure what sort of OTA HDTV is being put out by the local affiliates, but I don’t have high hopes for that either.

Update: Hey, I just saw that a new season of The Shield has started, so time to add that to the Azureus list. The only problem with being so unconnected from prime-time schedules is that I don’t know when new shows are airing, like American Chopper or The Shield.