The Days of Being Gouged by Cable TV Companies Are Over…

…well almost.

Two services, reported by the Wall Street Journal this morning, look very promising FilmOn.com and Ivi. TV.  Both of these services address my biggest complaint about cable television — cost.

I don’t watch a lot of TV, so I really dislike paying my cable company for channels I will never watch. The idea of locking into a long term contract for this “privilege” is equally irksome.

Both FilmOn.com and Ivi .TV will allow you to watch broadcast TV directly on your PC or mobile device.  I just tried FilmOn.com on my iPhone and it worked quite nicely.  No software was required, just browse to the website.

Ivi TV appears to be more feature rich, but charges a paltry $4.99 per month with a 30 day free trial.  Setting up this service was simple and fast.  The screen shot (above) is from my local, New York City, broadcast of the Dr. Oz Show.  I even learned from Doc Oz, while writing this Blog post, that Chamomile tea is better for you that a glass of red wine to help you sleep at night.

I wrote “well almost” because neither service provides the ability for you to watch TV on your regular television (at least not yet).  I enjoy television the most when I’m sharing the experience with family and friends or relaxing in bed before falling off to sleep.

In order to watch Internet delivered programming on my regular TV, I recently purchased the $99 AppleTV device.  It works wonderfully, allowing me to watch or listen to anything in my iTunes folder, Netflix, YouTube and a few other service I don’t currently use on my regular TV.  However, if you want to watch a live broadcast programming, like your local sports team, AppleTV is not the answer.

The bottom line is that virtually anything anyone would want to watch is available, via some web based source, for delivery to one’s desktop PC or mobile device.  However getting this stuff to your “real television” is still a kludgy, hit or miss, proposition for tech savvy early adopters.