THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 8, 1995 TAG: 9512080498
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By KATRICE FRANKLIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
Saturday mornings are a time for children, cartoons, and endless toy commercials. But last Saturday, some Suffolk children got a little soft core instead of hard sell.
There, on a normally blank station, were the adult antics of the ``Spice'' pay-per-view channel. The revealing scenes were apparently fuzzy, but clear enough to outrage residents who hadn't asked the cable company to pipe the channel into their homes.
Mayor S. Chris Jones was barraged by complaints and raised the subject at Wednesday night's City Council meeting.
``To me, this is almost solicitation of pornography,'' Jones said. ``It happened Saturday morning when children are playing with the television.''
It was the second time this year that Suffolk residents criticized Falcon Cable for allowing the adult channel to seep through its system. Falcon Cable, which serves Suffolk, is the 15th largest multi-system cable company in the nation.
The first time was last spring, when customers turned on their televisions one weekday morning and got an eyeful of what the ``Spice'' channel had to offer. It was an installation problem that mistakenly sent what was then a new channel out to all subscribers. It took only minutes for Falcon to realize its mistake and correct the problem.
Saturday's mix-up was worse, city officials argued, because it happened at a time when parents feel its safe to let their children take over the remote controls and it lasted hours.
``Several different people called me,'' Jones said. ``I don't think there's any excuse for it. I've been getting more calls about the cable service than I do for city services.''
``I don't know what we can do, but whatever we can do to hold their feet to the fire. . . should be done,'' Jones said.
Falcon officials said Saturday's mix-up was caused by old converter boxes, which they are in the process of replacing. They told the City Council that they're fed up with the adult channel, too.
Falcon received more than a dozen complaints about Saturday's blunder.
``I don't want ya'll to get phone calls,'' said Jack Edwards, Falcon's regional manager. ``I'm just as tired of this as you.''
Edwards said that he is considering canceling the ``Spice'' channel entirely.
``I`ve already notified the corporate office,'' Edwards said. ``Anytime the City Council tells me to take it off, I will.''
``But I'm in the process of trying to do that now,'' Edwards said. ``I don't want to send it to nobody's house that doesn't want it.'' by CNB