Cable vs DIRECTV: the channels you won’t find on Charter, Comcast, Time Warner or Cox

If you’re considering leaving Cable or just comparing it to DIRECTV, you’ll soon stumble upon the fact that there are plenty of channels simply not available on cable. That means you flat out won’t find it in ANY of their packages — it’s almost always due to a contractual (read: money) issue between the cable provider and channel network. Sometimes, TV providers bend and pay a bit more so their subscribers don’t lose out on a channel… other times (especially with smaller companies), they put their profit margins first and drop the channel entirely.

In the table below, you’ll find all those channels dropped (or never added) by the top cable providers and whether it’s available on DIRECTV. As mentioned, channel negotiations are almost always in flux and eventually resolved/delayed, so expect this list to change about every few months. To make it easier to compare, we’ve only listed a channel if it’s not included in the programming of at least one cable company.

Note: a red x denotes the provider doesn’t carry the channel.

Channel list last updated: 9/9/21

About the author

George Levint

George is the senior editor at DigitalFind and an expert in how technology at home impacts our lives. From funky analog radios to AI devices that try to out-think you, he's usually unfairly critical until proven otherwise. He also enjoys spending the occasional weekend off-grid to keep Skynet guessing.