Available content for cable cutters

Hello all

My wife and I plan to cut that cable cord and resort to streaming. At this point we are exploring our streaming options; we have several already. However, one area is streaming live TV such as news or sports events. I know Apple TV (which I do not yet own) provides much of this live TV. My question is if I need to have a cable provider agreement to watch on Apple TV. I know to watch much of the news content on Roku an agreement with a cable provider is required. For instance, signing up for CNN news through their app on Roku requires I have an active cable subscription in order to watch.

So the question really is do I need to have an active cable subscription in order for me to watch “live” content on Apple TV.

Thanks

Jim