BASIC, PREMIUM RATES RISE SEPT. 1

Cape Girardeau and Jackson cable television customers will be paying more for basic service and premium channels beginning Sept. 1.

But the price for expanded basic service will actually decrease under the new rate structure, said Roger Harms, local manager of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI) cable system, which serves about 13,000 subscribers in Cape Girardeau and Jackson.

"Many but not all of our customers will see their bills go down slightly," said Harms.

The new rate for basic service and expanded basic service will be $10.23 a month. That's an increase of 23 cents for basic service and a decrease of 6 cents for expanded basic, Harms said.

Six of the expanded basic channels will be added to the nine existing channels offered as part of basic service. The move will provide 15 channels in basic service and the same number in expanded basic.

Basic service will consist of KFVS (CBS), WPSD (NBC), WSIL (ABC), the Prevue Guide, local access channel, WSIU (PBS), KBSI (Fox affiliate), WTBS, WGN, BET, C-Span, QVC, Vision/Acts, Lifetime, and The Weather Channel.

Expanded basic will include Headline News, AMC, Nickelodeon, Cable News Network, the Family Channel, The Nashville Network, A&E, CNBC, The Discovery Channel, Prime Sports, VH-1/Comedy Central, ESPN, MTV, USA and TNT.

The premium channels will cost more as well, said Harms. HBO will cost $13.50 a month, a 35-cent hike; Showtime and Cinemax, $12.60 each, a 40-cent increase for each channel; Disney, $10.60, a 65-cent hike; and Encore, $1.75, a 25-cent increase.

Rates for various premium channel packages will increase by $1.

There will be some other fee changes as well. The monthly cost of converters will go from $2 to $1.57, and remotes from $2 to 17 cents. But the cable operator will now charge a $29.44 hourly service fee for services such as installation. Previously, there was no service fee charged.

Also, there will be a $2.09 monthly charge for the cable devices that customers need for pay-per-view television. TCI had not been charging such a fee, but under federal regulations it must now charge such a fee or abandon any thought of levying such a fee in the future, said Harms.

Some of the changes are the result of the 1992 federal cable act, which has set "benchmark" rates for the nation's cable systems, Harms said.

"Due to the rate formula the government requires that we use, we have reallocated our rates in ways that may cause differences from house to house. This also means that while some individual items on our customers' bill will go down, others will go up," said Harms.

The premium channel rates, which are not regulated by the government, are being raised to help offset other costs, he said.

Harms said it's been more than a year and a half since the local cable system has raised its rates. During that time, operating costs have continued to climb, he said.

Federal Communications Commission regulations concerning the new cable act comprise more than 400 pages, Harms said.

The rate compliance deadline at first was pushed back to Oct. 1 and then moved up to Sept. 1. "The government put us in a hurry-up mode," said Harms. "First we had to understand the regulations, which were massive, then we had to apply them to our system."

Some of the changes, he acknowledged, may not be popular with cable customers. But Harms said, "We have tried to minimize the inconvenience to our customers as best we can."