Do any of them include the Golf Channel? That’s the one I most care about, because I particularly like watching LPGA golf, which is almost exclusively aired on the Golf Channel.
I think they all do. I know YouTube TV for sure offers it.
Interesting. I’ll have to look into the streaming services when my DirecTV 2-year contract is up. Assuming they stream in 4K (when available), that could indeed be better. Thanks for the info!
I think the more important question I posed was why would one choose their cable company, which everyone hates, as an over-the-top TV provider instead of the many alternatives (Sling, YouTube TV, Playstation Vue, etc.)?
New York 1, a 27/7 local/hyperlocal news channel from Spectrum. Sadly, financial pressures on the big three have forced them to drastically reduce the numbers of reporters and ax desks; it’s equally true across the globe. Compared to a few years ago, there’s barely any local coverage at all. In addition to news, there’s traffic, transportation and weather every 10 minutes. All the mobile mapping apps do a really awful job on the NYC public transportation system, which is deservedly notorious for its bad service.
The news from the local broadcast channels doesn’t come close to NY1’s coverage, there’s not as much airtime, there’s hardly any hyperlocal coverage, and there’s not much of it available every day.
BTW, I wish Apple News would serve more local coverage. I’ve 
ed about everything I could find in my area, but they don’t dish it out.
I had to laugh when reading that. I’ve been to New Yawk plenty of times so I understand what you say. But it just strikes me as funny how you as a New Yorker say that knowing that in many places on this planet, people think of your city as the one where all you need is public transit, they consider your subways the gold standard and would probably love to trade in whatever **** shop they have anytime for your MTA. I really like your subway system too (when it runs), I just cannot figure out why you still can’t follow Chicago’s example and run your subway lines straight into the terminals of your large airports.
Sorry for the OT post, I just had to laugh when I read your post. 
Tivo
I have to type this to get to 10 characters so it will post. Oh, well.
Thanks for this; it’s 100% true. And to keep it Apple related, there is a free, ad supported NY1 iOS app. You would think the news, transit and transit would be updated on a timely basis, but it isn’t. The MTA has NYC bus and subway apps; bus app works OK sometimes on some routes, but the subway one is so totally useless that I deleted it.
Since Apple reportedly has upped its development of Maps, and will in the not too distant future have a streaming TV service and a robo car system. Maybe they might be thinking of developing some localized content? They’ve also got News and the recently acquired Texture.
I don’t watch golf, but if the Golf Channel is the one that has the NBC peacock associated with it, then yes for PS Vue, DirecTV Now, and Hulu (depending on which package you are considering). All have free trial periods (usually a week) if you want to check one or more out. I’ve subscribed to all of these for varying lengths and can state it’s an individual choice based on your needs. I find the upsides to be no contracts (so that maximum liability is one month’s payment) and the ability to subscribe to individual channel apps (such as CNN, Animal Planet, etc) with their on demand libraries using the service as the required “provider” (varies with each service). Plus a potentially better focused package for somewhat less money as compared to cable.
Tivo is a reason to keep your traditional cable TV, it won’t record over-the-top TV provided by the cable company any more than it would from other providers over the Internet. You can’t connect the Tivo between the aforementioned Apple TV box and the television, right?
Do you have a citation for this? I know that almost all cable TV is now digital, rather than analog, over the coaxial cable but that doesn’t meant it uses TCP/IP. My understanding was digital cable works the same as analog, all the channels are delivered to your house all the time, the box just tunes into a single channel at a time, the box isn’t sending a command to a server to stop sending one channel and start sending the next.
Even if digital cable TV is using TCP/IP over the coaxial cable to the cable TV box, I’m certain that it’s still completely isolated from any Internet service provided over the same cable.