[Porsche-O-Phile]

My personal way:

Apple TV (Roku is another option)
On-demand programming only (pay for the shows you want, no commercials, no BS)
Netflix subscription ($7 a month). I believe Hulu is comparable. Amazon Prime members (if you happen to be one) can get extra / premium content on their service I believe too. You can buy additional premium networks / channels as well if you want them (but I don't bother).

If I watch 2-3 shows a week (which is what I do at most) it averages out to about $20 to $25 a month (including an occasional movie purchase) above and beyond Netflix. That's a total monthly nut of around $27-$32. Not bad.

Upsides:

Only get what you want
No commercials
Get it WHEN you want it (not beholden to someone else's schedule)
All HD
You can effectively* re-watch the content whenever you want
You can watch on any device - home TV or mobile (iPad, phone, laptop, whatever)
You can save stuff to your devices (Apple TV content anyway) in case you find yourself without an Internet connection somewhere
No ugly cable boxes or satellite dishes - no stooge contractors cutting holes in your house as part of their "professional installation" (another rant for another time - these monkeys recently did thousands of dollars in damage to a relative's house with their half-assed install job)
Pick and choose premium content (HBO, Disney, etc. rather than get stuck with "bundling" deliberately designed to inflate costs and bury desired content in hundreds of worthless channels.
Did I mention no commercials? Zip. Nada. Not a one.



* you do not actually OWN the content for an Apple TV purchase - theoretically Apple could pull content per the TOU I believe but I've never experienced this with any media (music, show, movie, whatever nor have I heard if it ever happening). Netflix is known to mess with offerings so something they had last month might eventually be "NLA" if you want to go back to it - rare but occasionally happens...

Downsides:

Automated recurring payments required for both Netflix & Hulu (I frikkin hate this but it's a condition of membership and I haven't figured out a way around it yet)
No local TV news (I was actually going to put this in the "pros" column since I can't stand it but some people would have disagreed...
No pro sports programming - with some exceptions (same with the above - I personally could care less but some folks might). You can always buy NFL TV or MLB TV or whatever and stream it - extra cost). It's easy enough to fool the silly "in market blackout" censoring nonsense if you want, btw.
Can't necessarily find EVERY show / movie (but this is a challenge even with premium cable so what's the difference?)

Experiences by others out there? I personally think the Con-casts and Time-Warners of the world are dead men walking. On demand digital direct content is absolutely the way to go and I see more and more people starting to embrace it.