The short answer is that right now you can use rabbit ears to pick up a few channels without subscribing to cable. Once everyone goes digital, unless you have a converter box this won’t work anymore. Everything is going digital next year unless you live in a test area in which case it is changing even sooner. So you either have to get a converter box or you will lose reception.
Luckily, the government is also giving out coupons for these boxes as many people rely on their TVs and rabbit ears as their only method of getting the news. And that’s part of why the stations that broadcast in this manner were allowed to do so to begin with – to get the news out to people.