Leave it to the tech bros take everything we had before, unbundle it all from the cable company, and sell it back to us in different ways.

What's Below

• 🚨 Cutting the Cord: A Life Without Cable (And Why …

  • 🏡 New House, New Rules

  • 📺 The Sopranos, Mindless TV & Unexpected Irony

  • 🏈 Streaming vs. Cable: A Rematch

  • 📊 Coming Up: Counting the Streams

• Jessica Rhodes Is My Guest

• Stingray Buys TuneIn

• Best Thing I Listened To This Week

• Voice Over Work

🚨 Cutting the Cord: A Life Without Cable (And Why I Don’t Miss It… Mostly)

I’ve lived with cable television my whole life. I grew up on 13 channels. Then we got a converter and suddenly there were more channels. Then Bruce Springsteen declared there were “57 Channels and Nothin’ On,” and honestly… he wasn’t wrong.

I bought 27” TVs, then HDTVs, then flatscreens. I bought my first Smart TV a few years back. But through every upgrade, move, and tech shift, cable was always there — like a faithful, slightly outdated friend.

Until I moved last week.

🏡 New House, New Rules

The new place is built like a bunker: concrete everywhere and ethernet ports in every wall. Wi-Fi doesn’t stand a chance. But here’s the twist — there’s something thrilling about hardwired internet that is ridiculously fast, especially out in a rural region.

I also bought an Amazon Fire Cube, which I promptly realized is mildly redundant when plugged into a Samsung Smart TV. I’m still learning the ecosystem of who-does-what-better.

Do I miss anything yet?

Not really.

I’m covered with DAZN, TSN/ESPN, a TSN+ subscription for La Liga, Amazon Prime, Crave/HBO, Netflix, and I’m pretty sure we accidentally have Disney+ in the mix as well.

What I actually miss is the mindless joy of scrolling the cable guide — that gentle act of searching for nothing in particular.

📺 The Sopranos, Mindless TV & Unexpected Irony

I just finished rewatching The Sopranos. As the show hits its later seasons, the characters often sit around watching mindless TV — a meta moment I appreciated more deeply this time.

Great TV mocking bad TV.

Peak irony.

Whenever I catch myself longing for the old cable-scroll ritual, I remind myself: maybe it’s time to write something, create something, or just meditate instead of numbing out.

🏈 Streaming vs. Cable: A Rematch

Streaming has come a long way since 2017, when the Sound Off Podcast took DAZN to the woodshed for thinking they could be the exclusive distributor of NFL football in Canada. Shortly after that episode dropped, the NFL asked DAZN to hand those rights back to traditional cable.

Streaming was not ready for prime time back then.

Fast-forward to today: this is the first year I didn’t pony up $300 to Rogers or Shaw for NFL Sunday Ticket. And I don’t miss it.

📊 Coming Up: Counting the Streams

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be talking with Sue Haas from NLogic about streaming television and advertising attribution.

Because here’s the million-dollar question:

How do we count all these streams, anyway?

Stay tuned — and stay wired. Literally. I’ll get you the answer to that question, next week.

Jessica Rhodes Is My Guest

Stingray Buys TuneIn

I’ve always loved TuneIn. It always felt like the defacto place to get everything radio, and it became even more useful once podcasts could be added. Then something happened. The 2019 Mercedes that came with TuneIn never actually became operational, the company stopped adding and supporting podcasts about 18 months ago and most of the news about the San Francisco based company has been about layoffs. Canadian streaming company Stingray has purchased it for $175 million USD - the tech price equivalent of a bowl of steam and ham sandwich. My only question going forward. Will podcasts be apart of the game plan?

Best Thing I Listened To This Week

I can’t get enough of this NXIVM thing. It is so unbelievably fucked up. In the time when the police was sorting out who did what, it became clear that everyone wanted to establish their role as a victim instead of perpetrator. And there was no better way to do that than with a documentary or a podcast. Allison Mack was clearly on the perpetrator side. She did her time and is now talking. So I figure - why not? Like I said - I can’t get enough of NXIVM. The best part is knowing that its lead loser Keith Raniere is spending 120 years in jail. FTG.

Voiceover Info Here

The studio made the move and has been set up in its new home. I recently recorded Christmas ID’s for The Island (radio) in Minoqua, WI. I also voiced ads for the U.S. Transport Department and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which is where you report organizations in the USA that screw up your move. It’s hiliarious how each one of these departamental websites has a headline or two slamming the Democrats. Unrelated - The Sound Off Media Company has refused to voice and air ads for the Department of Homeland Security. They were looking to recruit ICE Agents and I won’t be available to solve their problem. Their website reads like a tabloid.