About a year ago, I wrote about our decision to end our subscription to cable after 20 years, and rely on off-air DTV and online sources for our viewing. (It was the subject of a piece that ran on CNN Money in February, 2009)

This decision was driven by a couple factors. First, I got tired of paying around $70 a month for access to video content I never watched. I can afford it; I make a lot of money. But what’s the “Pleasure ROI” on about $850/year spent on cable? Well, it’s unbelievably low, even when compared to something as fleeting as two $200 a plate meals. So, what’s the point?

Second, our decision was driven by the vast amount of content now available online, legally: iTunes, Hulu, etc.

In May 2008, we ended our cable TV subscription. We kept the cable Internet service because, at 20 MBps, it’s the fastest service available in our area. (Unbundling cable from Internet costs an extra $10 a month where we live.)

We connected an Eye TV USB HD receiver to an unused Mac G5, connected a small antenna to it, and connected the computer to our 32-inch Samsung HD set.

The end result: the EyeTV’s included software turned the computer into a DVR for viewing/recording/timeshifting over-the-air (OTA) content. The computer’s internet connection delivered all Internet video. Our DVD player connected us to our Netflix habit.

An important caveat, which I noted a year ago: we’re not big fans of live sports, and we don’t watch a lot of live news on TV. If you fall into either category, you probably won’t be happy with the results.

So, in the past year, what have we watched? Nearly everything we wanted to, with a few exceptions, which I’ll note below.

Over-the-air: Despite having all the local channels available to us through our little antenna, we’ve watched only public TV, and our OTA consumption is has been almost exclusively how-to shows: Lidia Bastianich, Rick Steves. The computer records them, and we watch them later.

DVD player: we watched our weird assortment of Netflix videos – travel shows, documentaries, horror movies.

Online: everything else. We watched some episodes of 30 Rock, Family Guy, and a couple vintage shows on Hulu. We subscribed to Top Chef and Project Runway on iTunes (after NBC Universal returned). We bought single episodes of cable series like Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. We subscribed to video podcasts and watched them full-screen on the TV, from Deutsche Welle to TVO to WineLibraryTV to TED to The Cook and The Chef on Australia’s ABC. We watched tons of streaming video full-screen, ranging from Frontline and NOVA at PBS.org, to live CBC News from Toronto, Montreal, and PEI, BBC World News, Radio-Canada’s 24 hour news network RDI, to live coverage of the Mumbai attacks on Indian TV. And specialty sites delivered a lot of good stuff to us – from the aforementioned TED to Fora.tv, among others.

What have we missed? On election night, I wanted to watch live returns from every possible source all at the same time. With cable, this absurd desire is basically achievable. Without it, you’re left with ABC/NBC/CBS/PBS and a few online sources. We listened to NPR and watched a variety of video with the sound down.

That’s the only time, thus far, where I truly wanted cable. That said, I miss indulging my Barefoot Contessa habit on Food Network, but I had already grown bored of channel-flipping so I was weaned off it long before we got rid of cable.

Now, long-term? This is where it gets interesting. I’m not a big believer that all video is going to go online for free, or even in some advertiser-supported manner. I think a fair amount of stuff will stream free with ads, and I think the iTunes subscription model for series is reasonably viable.

What about the rest? I think cable companies will swallow the online distribution model through new set-top boxes that make watching TV and the Internet a near-seamless experience; and second, they’ll develop content deals with networks and producers to offer a huge array of stuff either through their own on-demand libraries (disastrous) or perhaps more likely, through Internet delivery platforms that are available only to cable subscribers.

This will add the magic element of Actual Revenue You Can See On A Balance Sheet to the online video equation, and most content of consequence will shift here. And again, the new set-tops will make the transition between traditional cable channels and Hulu-style internet delivery basically seamless.

Which means in 5 years, maybe I’ll be back on cable again. This has been my theory for the past two months. Two months from now, I might have a different theory. But that’s why this is fun, right?

Between now and then, we’ll be transitioning to a Mac Mini to reduce the electronic footprint in the living room.

When I saw news about it yesterday morning, my first thought was Wow, now I can easily listen to NOAA Weather Radio from Little Rock AR. Perhaps not a great reason to spend $5.99 for it. What makes it worth considering is Wunderground’s partnership with RadioTime to offer easy, searchable access to many tens of thousands of Internet radio streams, utilizing RadioTime’s database to display station logos, as well as what’s currently on the air. The app also grabs your GPS location, and serves up a listing of nearby radio stations that stream

I don’t know exactly what the new Public Radio Tuner app from APM will offer (beyond the basic info we’ve heard), but the ability to get a listing of nearby station streams via GPS, and “what’s on” info are two nifty elements that could add some great new functionality to the APM app. RadioTime’s database isn’t always correct, but a closer partnership between station and developer (certainly the case with the APM product) could give stations more control over updating this data. I’m willing to bet APM is planning to include features like this in updated versions.

This whole mobile thing is exciting – it greatly expands our listening options when we’re out and about with our devices (iPhone and others) and when you combine it with the aux jack in your car, it’s an even bigger deal: now it’s not just your iPod’s library playing through the car stereo, now it’s KCRW while you’re driving to work in Louisville KY, WNYC while you’re driving in Chicago because WNYC has The Takeaway, or Chicago Public Radio while you’re walking to work in mid-town Manhattan because they don’t carry The Takeaway.

This is simply the next step in a transformation that’s really nothing new. The Internet doesn’t make the act of broadcasting to listeners obsolete; it probably won’t make the use of AM and FM transmission obsolete for a long time; but it does mean that I’m no longer a prisoner to what one, two or even three public radio stations are offering on the legacy radio in my area. If my local station’s Morning Edition sounds like crap, and I already know what the weather will be today, why wouldn’t I listen to Maureen on KPBS’s Morning Edition on my commute? I have more than a hundred different Morning Editions streaming to me at any given moment in the morning.

Izzi Smith was saying this way back in 2004 and 2005, holding up his Treo at conferences. Remember?

I feel a little awkward because APM announced this last Thursday and I’m blogging about it a week later. But I was busy at the programming conference. That’s why this is a blog and not the news, right?

The app has a lot going for it: it will feature audio streams from any public radio station that submits its stream (today is the deadline to be included in the first release, with weekly updates to deliver new streams), and stations get the nice extra of having their logo displayed.

You can get a sneak preview by checking out the MPR Tuner (shown here), released a few days ago. It features Minnesota Public Radio’s three streams; simple and effective. (Search for it on iTunes)

NPR Mobile’s service offers lots functionality to participating stations and end-users – access to updated newscasts, text stories, a link to donate – but it doesn’t include access to station live audio streams.

Streaming audio (and video) is becoming more important than ever in the mobile space, thanks to the explosion in mobile internet use, driven largely by the iPhone but also by other phones and PDA’s. And for the iPhone, apps and services like Public Radio Tuner and NPR Mobile are vital because they enable the iPhone to access streaming content.

If you’re a listener, check to see if your station is partnering with NPR Mobile and watch for the new Public Radio Tuner on the iTunes Store. If you’re a public radio station, you should be partnering with NPR Mobile and with APM.

At Louisville Public Media, we’ve seen an increase in the number of emails (and tweets) asking about this – no surprise, given the popularity of the new iPhone. Last week, we picked a specific app and recommended it on our station sites. I created a brief tutorial for those who need it.

• Louisville’s NPR News Station
• 91.9 Radio Louisville
• Classical 90.5

We investigated acquiring the capacity to offer a separate iPhone stream, but after consulting with WFMU, we decided the enterprise-level solution was beyond our budget – the ROI (number of people we could serve with the stream) isn’t enough right now to justify the investment.

So, we’re recommending Nullriver’s Tuner Internet Radio, which sells for $5.99 on the App Store. I chose the app because of my personal experience with it, and the large number of positive reviews from users.

Stations: are you seeing a pickup in listener questions about iPhone streams? What are you doing about it?

Some early responses:

Robin Lubbock, WBUR (twitter): “Yes, some interest in that.”

Ann VerWiebe, WKSU/Folk Alley (comments): “We’ve been recommending Nullriver as well, for both WKSU and Folk Alley. We actually developed our own Folk Alley app – but we’re still in the Apple developer approval queue. I don’t know that people have been begging for it, but especially for Folk Alley (which is only available as streaming media), it would be nice to have.”

Josh Andrews, Chicago Public Radio (comments): “WBEZ is on the verge of recommending the Nullriver option as well. We are waiting for an estimate on building out our own tuner app through the iPhone sdk, but I expect we’ll find that cost prohibitive. (Does Ann have a $ figure she’s willing to share?) I also tried to contact Nullriver about getting pubradio stations listed in their directory. No reply.”  

Thanks!

Well, Hulu works pretty well. The streaming quality is excellent (I have 20 MBps at home, but I’ve tried it on slower connections with good results); the library is eclectic and deep – current series, classic TV. Commercials interruptions are so minor as to be trivial – generally one 15-30 second ad per break.

One of the main reasons why I cancelled cable TV last month was Hulu’s library of TV. Now, there are more reasons for you to say goodbye to cable, too: The Daily Show and the Colbert Report are joining the Hulu roster; so are NOVA, Scientific American Frontiers, Carrier and Wired Science from PBS. (I haven’t bid goodbye to my local public TV – I watch its over-the-air digital streams.)

Here’s how I cut the coax.

While I’m at it, PBS would get an A+ if it worked even harder with station producers to get a chunk of the how-to shows, Washington Week, as well as some of the lesser known but excellent public affairs content up on Hulu. Or if the iTunesU content from PBS and select PBS stations was expanded to included many other stations and shows. Documentaries are a minefield of rights issues, but I can’t believe that Gwen Ifill, Lidia Bastianich and Fons and Porter (I’m a fan of all four) have contracts that make online offerings cost-prohibitive. Rick Steves: will offering even just the oldest episodes damage viewing or DVD sales? I bet not.

I don’t want to over-simplify a complicated issue – local stations grapple with everything from server space and streaming costs (if they decide against free options) to workflow. But, let’s face it: most of the public TV experiments with online video are surprisingly timid, given the voracious appetite for it. It’s kind of like deciding to cautiously get into FM radio in 1986.

Good moves, PBS (and KQED, WGBH, etc) on iTunesU and Hulu. I hope others will follow your lead, and quick.