THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 6, 1996 TAG: 9607060336
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 53 lines
Cox Communications Inc. on Friday announced a reorganization of its rate schedule and channel lineup, a move that will mean rate increases for some customers and the choice of a new, mid-priced service tier for others.
Hampton Roads' dominant cable-TV operator, which has 260,000 local customers, said the changes will take effect Aug. 1 and apply to its subscribers in South Hampton Roads only.
Cox said it created a new service option known as Cox Plus that for an additional $3 a month will provide viewers with six cable networks: sports channel ESPN 2, The History Channel, American Movie Classics, The Nashville Network, TNT and The Discovery Channel.
In all, Cox will switch the positions of 17 channels. It also plans to impose some rate increase to cover increased costs for programming and general inflation.
Four of the channels in the new Cox Plus tier will be pulled from Cox's current expanded basic lineup: AMC, Nashville, TNT and Discovery. The other two, ESPN 2 and History, are part of a five-channel, $2.95-a-month service tier known as Cox Select, that will be abolished.
Current customers will automatically be charged for the new six-channel service unless they notify the cable operator by Sept. 30 that they don't want it, said Larry Michel, Cox's local marketing manager.
He said Cox will sell the additional six channels to subscribers who take either of the cable operator's basic packages: limited basic, which costs roughly $8 a month for 20 channels; or expanded basic, which runs about $24 monthly for 57 channels.
Taking the place of the dislodged channels in the expanded basic lineup will be Home & Garden TV, The Cartoon Network and MSNBC, a new news network from NBC News and Microsoft Corp.
Home & Garden and The Cartoon Network were also part of the to-be-abolished Cox Select tier. One other channel in that tier, Turner Classic Movies, will become a stand-alone premium service for $1.95 a month.
For customers who subscribe to all 63 channels in what Cox now describes as standard service, including the six in the new Cox Plus tier, monthly rates will rise by $1.28 in Virginia Beach, to $26.21; by $2.23 in Portsmouth, to $26.67, and by $2.24 in Norfolk, to $26.46.
But Michel said customers who take the reorganized 57-channel lineup and skip the new Cox Plus would pay 76 cents to $1.72 less per month under the new structure.
And he said by being able to combine Cox's $8-a-month limited basic service and the new $3-a-month Cox Plus service, customers will have a new mid-priced option that includes some of the most popular cable TV networks in TNT and Discovery.
KEYWORDS: COX CABLE OF HAMPTON ROADS RATE INCREASE by CNB