CABLE TV ADDITION MEANS TIME-SHARING FOR LOCAL CHANNEL

TCI Cablevision in Cape Girardeau has added the new FX Fox Broadcasting channel to it's lineup. To make room for the new channel, the local access channel will be sharing time with C-SPAN.

Some supporters of the local access channel feel the time-sharing arrangement is a mistake.

The changes began Wednesday, said Roger Harms with TCI Cablevision of Cape Girardeau.

The new FX station is on channel 26. The Family Channel has moved to channel 13 and C-SPAN is now on channel 5. C-SPAN programming will be preempted by local programming on the access channel 5.

The Fox Cable Network started nationally Wednesday. FX, as it's known, has different programming than KBSI Fox 23. The new station includes some new, live programming and a lot of old, syndicated programs, Harms said.

TCI added the station as part of retransmission negotiations with broadcast station in the fall of 1993. "Part of the deal to carry the local channel 23 is that we would carry the new FX station," he said. "The reason we had to do a channel shuffle was to make room for it."

The Family Channel is now included in basic cable service.

"The city granted us permission to use the access channel until we get our system upgraded," Harms said. "That was very kind of them. If not, we would have had to drop a channel."

Harms announced no time frame on the time-sharing arrangement. He said it's all part of franchise negotiations with the city. "We plan to expand the system so we can add channels," Harms said. "We envision this as a temporary solution."

Local access programming is broadcast seven or eight hours a week on channel 5, Harms said. The local programs will take precedence over C-SPAN programming.

Cape Girardeau City Attorney Warren Wells said the City Council on May 26 reached a consensus that TCI be allowed to use the access channel for a temporary time. Formal consideration is scheduled for Monday's council meeting.

Wells said TCI had asked for approval to share the channel for 18 months. Council members wanted to limit the time-sharing to one year.

"The council also made is clear that local access was going to be first priority," he said.

"We are still developing ideas for expansion of use of the local access," Wells said. "By the same token, we wanted to give them a chance to get their fiber optics in place, and at the same time we didn't want people to miss out on C-SPAN.

"TCI has acknowledged that it's the city's channel to use and they need our permission to use it," Wells said.

Michael Maguire spoke to council members at the May 16 city council meeting and asked that permission for time-sharing on the local access channel be denied.

"One of the few resources and few advantages in the cable acts is the local access channel," Maguire said. "It is Cape Girardeau's.

"I implored the council not to give permission, but rather to stake its ground and force TCI to time-share C-SPAN with another channel or bump a channel," he said. "The city should not waste a precious resource that we have."

Maguire, who is chairman of the Cape Girardeau cable committee, said, "It's us saving TCI's bacon and not getting anything in return. The citizens of Cape are being shortchanged."

Jim Dufek, assistant professor in mass communications at Southeast Missouri State University and also member of the city's cable committee, hopes the city will set a firm time limit for the time sharing on local access.

"The city and TCI worked out this arrangement that it would be a temporary move. It's not a bad move, but I don't believe the temporary at all," Dufek said. "You hear so much about the information superhighway. They keep saying 500 channels. My God, we can't get past 36."

He fears use of the local channel will drop. "Out of sight, out of mind," Dufek explained. "People don't have the idea that it's there where there is only a short amount of programming.

"The danger is that TCI is programming the channel when the city should have the opportunity to put on what they want."

Dufek said the cable access channel is under-used, because people don't know it's available.

"The access channel is really the last soapbox people can use," he said. "Access channels can really be used to develop issues and answer issues and to give people the opportunity to say what they want -- more than a sound bite."