CABLE CHANGES PROPOSED; TCI MEETS WITH CITY TO DISCUSS GRIPES

The Cape Girardeau City Council will consider a proposal from Tele-Communications Inc. that could lead to changes for cable-television subscribers.

TCI and city representatives met Tuesday at City Hall to discuss recent customer complaints about the local system.

Local TCI general manager Roger Harms and Tom Cantrell, the company's district director of franchise and government affairs, presented the city with a list of proposed changes to its city franchise agreement.

Cantrell said the changes would drastically increase channel capacity and provide greater flexibility in programming and billing.

"We went down the list, and frankly I think we are pretty close on most issues," Cantrell said.

City Manager Michael Miller, Mayor Al Spradling III and Miller's administrative assistant, Walter Denton, represented the city at the meeting.

The City Council will consider the proposal in closed session prior to its regular meeting Monday. Action is not immediately expected.

"Right now the matter is not approved, disapproved or otherwise resolved," Spradling said. "Until the council sits down and looks at the proposed contract changes, everything is up in the air."

Some system changes are coming soon, however.

Beginning next week TCI will drop The Animal Planet from the local system and replace it with VH-1. The Animal Planet was added in late December in a series of program changes that sparked negative responses from cable customers. Also added was The Cartoon Network.

To free channel space, VH-1 and Comedy Central, which shared a channel, and Chicago superstation WGN were dropped.

TCI is required under franchise agreements with Jackson and Cape Girardeau to provide customers 30 days notice of programming changes. Both cities, however, granted a waiver to allow the change to occur sooner.

When VH-1, a music video channel, returns it will have an entire channel to itself. There are no immediate plans to restore Comedy Central.

As for WGN, the removal of which accounted for most viewer discontent, Cantrell said it could be restored in the future under the proposal before the city.

While the proposal doesn't mention WGN, Cantrell said it does say TCI will carry a Chicago-based broadcast channel that the company also carries on its Carbondale-Marion, Ill., system. That system carries WGN.

Cantrell said the vagueness is because TCI doesn't want to be bound to carrying WGN if the station were to make programming changes -- such as dropping Chicago Cubs baseball or Chicago Bulls basketball -- that would negatively affect the station's popularity.

"We want to maintain editorial control over what programming we carry," Cantrell said.

Neither Cape Girardeau nor Jackson can dictate programming under their franchise agreements.

Tuesday's meeting was the second between TCI and Cape Girardeau officials since the City Council passed a resolution Jan. 6 censuring the company for making programming changes without seeking prior costumer input.

"We have stressed to them all along that our interest is in their company providing quality service to the community," Miller said.

TCI representatives have not met with Jackson city officials. However, Mayor Paul Sander said that Jackson and Cape Girardeau each have the right to accept any agreement the other strikes with the company.

One of the TCI proposals is to introduce digital compression technology to the local system. Cantrell said the technology would allow for the expansion of channel capacity from the roughly 40 channels now available to a minimum of 70 channels.

The existing franchise agreement mandates that TCI introduce a fiber optic cable system in 1998. Digital compression would replace that plan. The City Council would have to approve the change.

Such a system is in operation in Hartford, Conn., and Cantrell said the company wants to show city officials how it works.

The company also wants to create a more flexible schedule of services and billing. Cantrell said customers who don't want to pay for additional channels shouldn't be forced to.

"Only those who want digital compression will get it and only those people will pay for it," Cantrell said.

"It gives us a way to meet consumer demand without burdening the entire rate base. It is the perfect solution."

Details on the billing and service plan are still being developed.

Customers soon will have a chance to reduce their cable bills. Beginning March 1, AMC, USA and The Disney Channel will be packaged together. Bills for customers who drop the package will decline by $2.47 a month. Customers who retain the package will experience no increase.