Her family has been subscribing to Time Warner Cable for some nine years, and because they get phone, Internet and TV service, they are among the cable operator’s most valuable customers. But rather than cobble together a temporary solution, they’re more likely to switch providers, possibly to Verizon, she said.

"We don’t want TV-watching to be a complicated activity," Balod said. "We don’t want to see if we can find it streaming from somebody else or hooking up a computer or anything like that. We just want to use our remote control."