Cutting the cable cord: How to find the TV shows and movies you want online

We are in the midst of a big shift in how you consume TV. I’ll give you an example: My kids don’t know what traditional pay TV programming is. It’s meaningless to them. That’s because they have grown up with video content being available on their schedule.

A sign of things to come

In my house, it’s ‘Dad, I can’t find XYZ show.’ My son who is 10 was upset when a show he loved vanished from Netflix recently. And that will be happening more and more: There will be this constant thing with rights shifting from Netflix to Hulu or wherever else.

So I have to get out the laptop and look around and say, ‘OK, the program you want is now on this platform or that platform.’ The reality is there’s this massive amount of content available without paying cable or satellite provider. But how do you find it?

Facebook has built something called Rabbit TV Lite into its interface. It lets you see where any video content is available for free, in an effort to get you to spend more time on Facebook.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg…

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Here are some other ways to find the content you want

Two of the better listing guides for current material are FindInternettv.com and OVGuide.com. Both list movies, recent network and cable TV shows, old reruns, livestream guides and more. A Google search for “Internet TV Guide” will bring up many other sites.

Vintage:
Free Classic movies in the public domain (From 1899-present)
http://free-classic-movies.com/

Free Classic TV shows in the public domain:
http://free-classic-tv-shows.com
http://www.reruncentury.com
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And finally, here’s a really fascinating archive of Classic TV shows, historical news clips & fun vintage TV commercials:
https://archive.org/details/television

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Dish to offer standalone streaming service with ESPN

Finally, if you haven’t quite been able to bring yourself to cut the cord, here’s a possible compromise: Dish has a new streaming product called Sling.com that won’t require a cable or satellite subscription. For $20 a month, you’ll get a limited number of channels, but here’s the thing”¦this deal includes ESPN! That channel has prevented a lot of people from cutting the cord in the past, so this is big news.

With Sling, which is targeted at 18-34 year olds, you can stream to any device and watch TV when, where, and how you want without paying for overpriced channels you don’t want.

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