Cutting the Cord on Cable TV: Canceling the Lease and Switching to MOD 🎉

Recently, whenever I go back to my hometown, I hear my mother saying she wants to cut the cable TV line and cancel the lease. This is interesting — on ordinary days, no matter how I try to persuade her, she always insists on continuing to pay the NT$500 monthly fee to watch cable TV. This time, however, it was my mother who took the initiative to say she didn’t want to watch anymore, asking me to return the coaxial cable set-top box equipment to the cable TV company to cancel and terminate the service.

After asking about the reason in detail, I learned that on one hand, CTi News on channel 52 seemed about to have its broadcasting license revoked by the government’s National Communications Commission (NCC), whether by switching channel numbers or shutting down entirely — in any case, the result of political infighting and a foul atmosphere, where the winner takes all.

On the other hand, as my mother grew older, her eyesight worsened, and she had already made several trips to the eye clinic, so she figured she might as well take this opportunity to reduce her TV-watching time.

The Decline of Cable TV

I’ve been advocating to my family for a long time that the glory days of cable TV will never return, and there’s no need to keep clinging to that expensive monthly fee without getting better returns.

The only reason that ever stopped me from canceling cable TV was that news channels like CTi News, SET News, and TVBS couldn’t be found on MOD digital set-top boxes with programs on the same schedule. Even if the same programs were available, they’d be delayed by an hour or two to let cable TV air first, turning the original prime time into bedtime.

Some people might say, why can’t you find them? There are alternatives online to replace cable TV channels, and YouTube even has live channels, for example:

• CTi News (formerly channel 52)
• SET News (formerly channel 54)
• TVBS (formerly channel 56)

But honestly, flipping up and down with a remote control does have its appeal.

If you ask the older generation to spend all day operating a phone and switching back and forth among a bunch of apps, they might learn it after a bout of dizziness, but it’s still not as convenient as a single remote control.

A more compromise solution is to use Chunghwa Telecom’s MOD, which also has a remote control, or other digital set-top boxes sold on the market[2].

Although you can say all these nice things to the elders, and there are several solutions, after considering real-world factors, the channels that are actually usable and convenient aren’t as many as you’d imagine — the same situation plays out all over the country.

So I’d said several times that I wanted to cut the cable TV line, but it always ended up fizzling out.

This time, it was the elders who took the initiative to propose cutting cable TV — a rare opportunity that comes only once every few years. How could I not make good use of it?

Notes on Canceling the Cable TV Set-Top Box Lease

It also happened to be the end of another quarterly payment period, and I was told I needed to continue paying NT$1,500 for three months. I simply stopped the automatic payment and didn’t pay to renew. I’ll wait for a day to bring the three digital set-top boxes from my hometown, the remote controls, power adapters (transformers), and video cables (HDMI, S-Video cables) and other accessories, along with ID documents, to the service center counter to cancel the lease.

Here I should remind everyone that since cable TV has been deeply embedded in people’s lives for decades, its usage spans a very long time with many changes of people and circumstances. As a result, the cable TV “line” and the “set-top box(es)” may not be under the same person’s name.

In that case, we must bring the ID documents of the relevant people to cancel the lease. According to what I learned from asking customer service, if it’s not the person’s own ID, a photocopy can be used as a substitute. However, each company’s rules may differ, so please inquire with the operator directly about related questions. (Addendum: After completing the cancellation today, the counter lady actually didn’t check the other people’s IDs — so the rule is one thing, and on-site practice is another.)

Taking advantage of the roughly two-week gap before the cancellation, I also empirically tested that the elders can still keep up with new technology. Now they can freely operate their phones to watch the programs they want (of course, occasional operational exceptions still require help — just treat it as a chance to chat and bond).

Replacing Cable TV Program Channels

Since my hometown’s internet system is leased from Chunghwa Telecom, I also set up MOD digital set-top boxes, so the elders can freely choose the drama programs and movies they want to watch on MOD using the remote control.

As for the news content and political talk shows they most need to pass the time, I bought a cheap and practical Google Chromecast media player, turning the TV directly into an internet-connected TV. They just need to use their phones to operate YouTube to watch the live streams of various news channels. (Other “digital TV boxes” also offer similar or stronger functions.)

Although cable TV claims to have over 100 channels, the ones actually watched are just a few.

For example, the news channels between channels 50 and 56. On weekend evenings, they’d watch Videoland Japan’s “Himitsu no Kenmin SHOW,” “Sekai no Himitsu no Sumai ni Bikkuri,” “Nippon ni Ikimasu,” and “Follow Me to Your Home.” Other channels really aren’t watched.

Oh, right, and during fixed dinner times they’d watch Crayon Shin-chan and Chibi Maruko-chan (later I found that TTV and CTV air the same cartoons during mealtimes, and with newer content).

You can also try to think about whether the channels you and your family watch on ordinary days are pretty fixed.

At least for me, canceling cable TV brought no inconvenience at all. No Videoland Japan? Then go read books and magazines, or spend more time gathered with family chatting — that’s great.

References

1. “Videoland