CABLE PROGRAMMING GETS SCRUTINY; GROUP AT TOWN HALL MEETING ENCOURAGES `PAY' FOR MTV

About 100 people packed City Hall Monday to protest TCI Cablevision of Missouri's local programming.

The Cable TV Citizens Committee hosted the "town hall" meeting to solicit public comments concerning local cable TV service.

The committee was formed in 1990 to negotiate a new cable franchise with TCI. The meeting was held as part of the committee's responsibility to gather public comment on cable TV service.

Although the committee has no control over TCI's programming, the subject dominated discussion Monday night.

The majority of those at the meeting indicated they support the addition of ACT 45, a local 24-hour Christian broadcasting network, to the cable system and separation of MTV, a rock music video station, from basic service.

Others at the meeting urged the addition of a St. Louis TV station to local service. The Rev. Louis Launhardt, pastor of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, asked for expanded use of the city's public access station for religious programming.

Also, Tom Schulte of the Cape Girardeau office of Sen. John Danforth and Sen. Christopher Bond explained Senate Bill 12, which would impose additional regulation on the cable industry. Danforth introduced the bill in Congress.

But about a dozen people testified either in opposition to MTV or in favor of ACT 45.

Linda Lawrence said that TCI's programming in general needed improvement. She said a commercial recently was broadcast on WTBS, an Atlanta-based station, that advertised a morning program that had "everything you want: gluttony, sloth, drunkenness and lust," Lawrence said.

"That just kind of summed up the programming. It really hit me that someone thinks this is what we want."

Lawrence urged TCI to add more family-oriented programming that portrays virtues such as "truth, honesty, faithfulness..."

But Roger Harms, local cable manager, said that TCI must offer programming to suit a large and diverse population. He also said he has little control locally over what is offered by TCI, a national cable company.

Joe McCullough, who's a board member of the local American Family Association, was the first of several people to criticize MTV. He said the music video station broadcasts material that is "objectionable to Christians and anyone who is moral."

McCullough asked that the station be separated from basic cable programming and offered at a cost to subscribers.

"We are not advocating banning MTV from the cable network. We are not advocating censorship. We're merely advocating making it a paid station like HBO," he said.

McCullough said that although parents are able to monitor what their children watch, they can't always be in the home with the children.

Rita Kuntze, also a member of the American Family Association, said that although TCI will install "lock boxes" to block out reception of particular stations, she thought it was unfair to charge people the $25 fee for the service to block a station they find offensive.

"I feel like it's unfair for me to have to pay for that channel to come into my home then pay for their lock boxes to keep it out of my home," she said.

Donna Miller said she apparently is the only person in Cape Girardeau to have the devise installed. She said that after she ordered a lock box, it was three months before TCI was able to get one.

But Harms said TCI has a national contract with MTV, which prohibits the cable company from making the station a stand-alone service.

Committee member David Barklage said the committee might want to include easier access to lock boxes in its franchise negotiations with TCI.

Donna Thomas, an English teacher in the Cape Girardeau School District, said she didn't understand why ACT 45 couldn't be added to cable TV service here. She said the station provides a wide variety of non-denominational Christian programming.

"Christianity in this area is not in the minority," she said. "It's a life practiced by thousands. Channel 45 is here. It's available.

"And as an educator I implore you to offer this choice, not only to students, but to all."

The group last year garnered about 3,000 signatures on a petition requesting the station be added to cable service, Thomas said.

Harms said the station hasn't been added because the system's channel capacity is filled with the exception of Channel 19, which would lose its signal periodically due to interference from local paging services.