To paraphrase a line from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” …TV, or not TV? That is the question. That thought popped into my head when I suffered the slings and arrows of the outrageous costs of paying for television.

For those of us of a certain age, the idea of paying to watch television never crossed our minds. It was as absurd as someone telling us that in the future we would pay for bottled water. 

One of the first indications that things were changing on television occurred in 1971. That was the beginning of HBO as they offered the movie “Sometimes a Great Notion” starring Henry Fonda and Paul Newman. HBO bought the rights to recently released films and offered them to local cable systems. By 1972, subscribers were paying about six dollars a month to watch HBO.

HBO showed a new movie on their schedule every Saturday night. Keep in mind that the VCR, a videocassette recorder that let you save shows to watch at a later time, did not become popular until 1977. Many people stayed home to watch the HBO film.

In 1975 another program kept people glued to their televisions on Saturday. To watch Saturday Night Live you had to be home. Very few homes had yet to purchase a video recorder. As word spread and SNL became a must watch show, people adjusted their Saturday nights to be home at 11:30pm.

The complication with a VCR was that you had to manually set the start and stop recording times. A problem arose if the show you manually programmed was preceded by a sporting event that went into overtime or extra innings. When you sat down to watch the show you scheduled you would be surprised and disappointed to see the last 40 minutes of the NY Mets losing another game. When your preprogramed show finally appeared, you were upset to see that you missed David Letterman’s monologue, his stupid pet tricks segment and his funny first guest, George Carlin. As your television showed some group singing “Lambada” you reached for the remote and fast forwarded to the end. Today’s DVR’s let you set up the desired recording time with one tap on your remote. By the way, George Carlin was the first host of SNL.

These days the majority of households are signed up with cable tv. To protect their identity let us refer to the big players as Horizon, Spectum and IndirectTV. They all offer a variety of plans from basic channels all the way to the top tiers. Often, they charge more if you want to add premium channels like HBO or Showtime. No matter which plan you choose, you wind up paying a monthly bill to watch television.

The big players have produced other schemes to pump up your monthly bill. Although they sound like a way to decorate your living room for a party, these “streamers” are subscriptions that you pay to be added to your tv packages. 

The well-known entertainment providers encourage you to get additional programs by signing up for Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, Amazon Prime and many others. The problem is that 42% of people who signed up forget that they have added those packages. Monthly or annual fees automatically get charged to your credit card.

Gradually, many of us are drifting towards paying for additional streaming services. Companies are expanding their streaming options. They now produce original content that can only be seen by paying to join their streaming sites. If you want an indication of this trend, watch the EMMY awards show. You will see more nominees from streamers than the traditional big three of ABC, CBS and NBC. But those original channels will still serve a purpose. They will be a portal for advertising their monthly streaming subscription sites.

Hudson Cooper is a resident of Sullivan County, a writer, comedian and actor.