Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 15, 1994 TAG: 9407160014
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WASHINGTON - Cable television rates in the nation's top 25 cities have gone down an average 6.6 percent since last August, the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday.
The FCC said its survey found rates declined from an average of $25.17 a month to $23.50. The figure is for all regulated cable systems in the 25 cities and affects 3.7 million cable subscribers - about 84 percent of the subscribers covered in the survey - the FCC said.
The decrease covers equipment - converters and remote controls - and cable program services other than premium services, like HBO. Premium services are not regulated.
The FCC said that if the industry had continued to increase rates at an annual pre-regulation rate of nearly 6 percent, subscribers' average monthly bill would have been $26.59, rather than $23.50.
The survey, the commission said, shows rate regulation is working as intended.
But the survey produced only a limited snapshot of what may be happening with cable rates.
The survey looked at 43 systems in the 25 cities, covering only 8 percent or 4.5 million of the nation's 58 million cable subscribers. No Virginia cities were in the survey. The FCC collected the information in telephone interview with cable system managers over the last six weeks, said Kathy Wallman, deputy chief of the Cable Services Bureau.
The survey found that those systems, covering 14 percent of the subscribers in the survey, reported an average rate increase of 3.83 percent for service and equipment since August. Rates have gone up to $24.64 a month from $23.73.
- Associated Press
Clinton offers Caterpillar advice
WASHINGTON - President Clinton says Caterpillar Inc. and striking workers should settle their bitter dispute ``in a spirit of cooperation,'' and the company should not threaten to hire permanent replacements.
``I believe that the threat or implementation of replacing striking workers has a poisonous affect on relationships between workers and employers and that it does great damage to the collective bargaining process,'' Clinton wrote Donald Fites, Caterpillar's chairman, in a letter released Thursday.
The Peoria, Ill.-based company immediately began advertising for and started hiring permanent new employees after the June 20 strike, stressing they were not replacements for the strikers.
The United Auto Workers union struck plants in Illinois; York, Pa.; and Denver, affecting 13,300 employees at the world's largest maker of earth-moving equipment.
- Associated Press
by CNB