One of the things we miss the most about our former position as a TV news director was having an office just off the newsroom. The general hum (and occasional outburst) in a newsroom became a comforting rhythm over the years, not unlike those “white noise” machines some people get to help them sleep. We often miss that newsroom hum–more than we thought we would. Another thing we miss was having a bank of televisions on the office wall, allowing our almost-ADHD-addled brain to watch four or more newscasts simultaneously. No matter how fast you are with a remote, you can’t really switch back and forth between a couple of newscasts at the same time on a single TV.

We enjoy watching multiple newscasts, if only to see which stories were given different levels of importance in the editorial process of each newsroom. Since installing numerous TV screens in the living room of our home-based world headquarters wasn’t possible, the problem of how to watch everything became tougher to solve.

Let us point out that one of our most significant recommendations to anyone working in the TV news business is watching your newscast. And by that, we mean to watch it at home, as your viewers do. In the newsroom, you will have a very different viewing experience. Being at home frames your work differently, which you need to understand. Of course, it’s also important to watch your competition as well. How did they treat the day’s news differently or the same as your station did?

So we have discovered a way that allows us to record all four local newscasts at any given time and watch each of them on our own schedule, without a ton of equipment. This way allows for better analysis of what each newscast is doing and allows us to skip around (and past commercials). It is a far less frenetic experience than trying to watch multiple TV screens, as if we are some sort of crazed stock day trader staring at too many screens.

Our process is made possible with a small device few people seem to know about. It is called TABLO, an over-the-air home television DVR. Our TABLO is a small, 5-inch round white plastic box connected to a small bowtie-shaped digital antenna, which sits in a window on the upper floor of our townhouse. Because we live about 10 miles from the towers that carry nearly all of the local digital television transmissions, we don’t need an outdoor antenna, but TABLO can also work with one of those. It connects to our home WiFi system by plugging a single Ethernet cable into our WiFi router (The connector looks like the wire that plugs into a wired telephone, but with a plug that is a little larger.) That’s it, just two connections, plus plugging in a power cord. The whole installation took us a whopping 15 minutes. TABLO has an app that walks you through the process.

We should explain that TABLO combines digital TV tuners, a streaming box, and a digital video recorder. That mouthful means that once you set up the TABLO, it can tune and record up to four different things from any over-the-air (OTA) television signal in the current digital (ATSC 1.0) standard. More on that in a second. It then streams any of these signals to any connected screen in your home. That includes connected television sets, meaning those with their own internal App Store, such as Samsung, Sony, LG, TCL, and the like. (Oddly, TABLO has some issues working with televisions made by Vizio, so be aware of that limitation.) TABLO can also be accessed by any television set with an external streaming device such as Roku, AppleTV, Chromecast, FireTV, and others.

Just as those late-night TV infomercials love to say, “But wait, there’s more!” There are TABLO apps available for almost every mobile device you might have. So iPhones, iPads, Android-based phones, and tablets can all access the TABLO to allow you to watch good old free TV–as long as they are connected to your WiFi network. One disappointing limitation is that the current generation of TABLO is not accessible on laptops or desktop computers. You also have to be connected to your home’s WiFi network to access your TABLO device’s signal. (Before you hardcore geeks come at us, sure you could likely VPN into your home network and make a remote connection work. We haven’t tried that yet, and we figure most non-tech-obsessed regular people won’t be looking to do that much work either.)

Aside from the 60 or so current over-the-air digital TV channels and subchannels we receive here in the Twin Cities, the TABLO device also receives over 100 FAST channels. So cord cutters rejoice, many viewing options are available on the TABLO programming “grid” that looks much like the old school TV schedules that used to be standard fare in the daily newspaper. From this grid, you can change channels, select shows to be recorded, and manage your TV viewing on TABLO. Regarding storage, the TABLO can save about 50 hours of programming internally. The device also has a standard USB-A port, allowing you to connect an external hard drive to easily increase your TABLO’s DVR storage capacity. We have a 2TB drive attached, which provides an additional 200-plus hours of storage on our TABLO.

And that brings us to the bottom line. Specifically, how much does TABLO cost? The base unit can be purchased for $140; you will need to add another $20 if you need the indoor digital TV antenna. (Again, if you have an antenna now, it will likely work fine with TABLO.) Should you not need to watch or record 4 channels simultaneously, you can get a TABLO that records only 2 channels simultaneously for about $20 less. You can purchase a TABLO unit from Amazon by clicking here. (A reminder that this is an affiliate link, so if you complete a purchase, we receive a small commission from Amazon on your purchase.)

Then, if you want/need the additional DVR storage for recording shows, add from $70 to $150 for an external hard drive to connect to the TABLO. And there is the monthly subscription fee, because everything has one. But not TABLO! That’s right, there are no monthly fees for it. Once you buy the initial hardware, that’s it. TABLO automatically downloads TV program schedules over the internet, and it just works without additional charges.

We need to return for a moment to the previously mentioned limitation that the current, 4th-generation TABLO unit is strictly a current digital TV device. When (and some might say “if”) all local television signals move over to the ATSC 3.0 format, also known as “NextGen TV,” the TABLO box will become a nice door stop. Currently, the National Association of Broadcasters is proposing a 2028 deadline for stations in the largest 55 markets to switch to broadcasting in ATSC 3.0; remaining stations would have until 2030 to do so. With just 10 million or so television sets in use that can even receive NextGen TV signals, we will be surprised if these proposed deadlines don’t slip even further. That said, a TABLO purchased today might only have three to five years of useful life, depending on where you live. Even if the transition to NextGen TV happens on time, it works out to be about $50 a year to watch and record four OTA television signals on your home’s TVs and mobile devices.

That’s a fairly decent bargain to do something that we believe is critical to your development as a journalist working in (or leading) a television newsroom. If you have a different process that works for you, so be it. The key here is not the technology, but making it easy to do this important exercise on a regular basis.

How do you expect the viewers to do it if you don’t do it yourself?

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