I cancelled my Dish network about 2 years ago to save money and most of the channels were garbage anyway. The free over the air broadcast has some good stuff (Qubo channel is good for kids). I also have a KU-band satellite satellite on my roof that picks up all kinds of free channels (mostly foreign). And if you subscribe to Netflix, they have free instant movies on the internet. It integrates very well with the PS3.
Country guy may just need to be frugal as divorce may have been costly for him.
I've recorded shows from antenna broadcast for the kids (ie. Wipeout, Cyberchase) using a DVD recorder. It seemed just like using a DVR where you set the schedule of what time you want shows to be recorded, but instead of saving on a hard disk, they save on a read/write DVD.
