Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 13, 1993 TAG: 9303150535
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CABLE TV PREPARING FOR NEW RULES; BASIC PACKAGE WILL SHRINK
WHEN CABLE COMPANIES raise rates or make changes, "people complain that they're not going to take this any more, then they do," says Howard Musser, chairman of the Roanoke Valley Regional Cable Television Committee.
On March 22, subscribers to Cox Cable Roanoke's limited basic program package will save 59 cents a month - but lose five channels.
Some of the customers - mainly senior citizens - aren't too happy and have called government officials and the cable companies to say so.
"I've heard mainly from senior citizens upset about losing the Weather Channel and Discovery," said Anne Marie Green, spokeswoman for Roanoke County.
Cox Cable executives say they also have heard from older subscribers and are even willing to make deals to continue current service to some of the retirement facilities that have bulk contracts with them.
The Weather Channel, Discovery, CNN, Headline News and the Family Channel will move to the expanded basic package. Expanded basic costs $9.45 per month more than the $11.66 limited programming package.
Regulations coming July 1 from the Federal Communications Commission will require cable companies to offer a low-cost television package that will give customers good reception on local signals.
In preparation, the companies are culling basic packages of specialty channels that could cost them more in the future, because they expect the FCC to strictly control the basic package rates.
The changes affect only 3,200 of Cox's 52,000 customers, said Phil Ahlschlager, acting general manager.
Other Western Virginia cable companies are doing similar realignment of program packages or creating packages to provide the basic service cheaply.
For example, on Feb. 1, Simmons Cable TV in Radford raised the monthly rate for its standard package $1.30 to $22.75 and reduced the price of its basic cable service from $18.95 to $10.
Salem Cable TV Co. has added a new limited basic package for $11.28 a month.
Salem has only 70 basic subscribers among its 11,500 customers, said James Matthews, manager.
The cable panel's Musser said that, despite the complaints about losing channels, the new regulations are consumer-friendly.
There are some areas of the Roanoke Valley that can't get good reception of local stations without cable, he said. The low-cost package will benefit them.
Until the regulations are in effect, he said, there's nothing anyone can do anyway, "except complain."
Cable companies are also in a wait-and-see position, said Cox's Ahlschlager.
They still don't know if local broadcast stations will want payment for allowing cable to retransmit their signals.
The FCC has established rules for the negotiations between local cable companies and the local stations.
Some information in this story was provided by The Associated Press.
\ NEW CABLE RULES\ Beginning July 1, companies must:\ \ Operate a local, toll-free or collect call telephone access line 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Calls must be answered within 30 seconds and a caller should receive a busy signal no more than 3 percent of the time.\ \ Keep customer service and bill payment locations open during normal business hours, and conveniently located.\ \ Install service within seven days of an order.\ \ Notify customers of any changes in rates, programming or channel positions at least 30 days before the change.\ \ Make bills clear, concise and understandable and issue refund checks promptly.\ \ Allow customers to buy premium channels such as HBO or Showtime without purchasing tiers of service beyond the lowest price package.