Just curious because I don’t see people talk about it a lot.

2 points

Whatever, all free broadcasts are on YouTube anyways. But on demand and adblock exists

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0 points

Wait, what? Are you talking about people who upload content and try to slide by the copyright filters?

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1 point

Does this include american football games?

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1 point
*

Not youtube but there are sites that have every game and their condensed versions but never live.

Edit: not including pirate options.

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1 point

I’m not in that country, I don’t know

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7 points

People would be talking about it if there was anything actually worth watching on OTA channels

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4 points

Have you looked? A bunch of the new shows on Hulu are broadcast. Lots of reality TV. PBS rules.

Also a bunch of movies. Especially shitty Christmas movies around the holidays which are a personal favorite.

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8 points

Linear TV over an antenna? Well that’s only technically free. You’d need to buy a receiving device - that costs money. You need to watch ads - that costs time.

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10 points

Well considering many paid tiers of streaming services also serve ads, I consider it free-er than that.

Also, most of the hardware is already inside your TV. You just need a $20 antenna.

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6 points

I have no TV. I watch all my movies and series via a big PC screen which has no TV functionality.

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4 points

Ah. Well if your PC is static, a USB tuner isn’t too much. Plus then you have a built-in DVR.

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2 points

If you have a TV, you likely already have the receiving device. Antenna can cost, or you can play around with wire length and orientation.

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71 points

The cost to move to America is quite steep, though, and there are significant drawbacks.

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33 points

Dunno where you are but most countries I’ve visited in Europe have hundreds of free TV channels broadcast over the air. Minimal ads because a lot of the channels are tax subsidised, or like the UK, a loicense innit

Where I am, you get a TV streaming box from your ISP for a few euros, and streaming is free for about 200 channels; ad breaks are around one minute long every 30 minutes

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2 points

That’s interesting! So it’s like free cable TV?

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12 points

Not free, tax subsidised. It’s about €120 per year paid through local taxes. If it had the number of ads that cable has, nobody would watch it lol

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14 points

Heck, here in the UK, we have a TV licence and the OG ad-free service, the BBC.

Yeah, the BBC has had its fair share of controversies over the years, but I’m still glad it’s there and still ad-free.

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21 points

People who say the TV licence is a ripoff should be made to watch US cable TV. I nearly gouged my fucking eyes out with a rusty spoon.

The BBC produces the best quality TV programming on the planet

An awful lot of shite as well

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3 points

The cost to be born and continue existing in the US is also quite steep and if you hope to avoid these costs, dying is also quite expensive and in some cases illegal.

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34 points

The ads on over the air programming are so so terrible. And even with a great antenna the many channels aren’t exactly the highest quality content even if they didn’t have ads.

YouTube has taken the place of over the air TV and for good reason.

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6 points
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It has taken the place in people’s behaviour but it has not taken the place functionally. No doubt, you use technology to filter ads out of YouTube viewing, and one could do the same with OTA broadcasts.

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2 points

Also attempts to make the ads more invasive (louder in this case) are literally legally limited by the federal government.

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