TCI CHANNEL CHANGE, SURVEY QUESTIONED

TCI Cablevision General Manager Roger Harms feels every time he makes a necessary change, the Cape Girardeau Cable Committee treats him like a "dirty dog."

Committee Chairman Michael Maguire thinks Harms is misleading the public when he says the results of his latest survey warranted dropping one religious channel for one out of Marion, Ill.

The Faith/Values channel was to be dropped for the WTCT Tri-State Christian channel out of Marion.

Harms said he had two choices and made the best of a difficult situation.

"It's easy to sit there and say we should drop this station or keep that one when it's not your product or your decision," Harms said.

The Cable Consumer Protection Act of 1992 required Harms to replace a station with WTCT, he said.

And, he said, because the Faith/Values channel and Lifetime were the only ones not under contract, those were the choices available.

"We asked the customers what they wanted and 66 percent chose Lifetime over the Faith/Values channel," he said.

Maguire said TCI should have made its Prevue channel expendable, because the cable company isn't under contract to retain it.

Harms said that would be like biting the hand that feeds him.

"The Prevue channel tells people what we're offering," he said. "It would make no sense to take that away from our customers."

WTCT was a necessary addition to TCI's basic tier service because it qualifies as a must-carry station on the local cable lineup.

As part of the Cable Consumer Protection Act, cable companies are required to include in their channel lineup all qualified local broadcast stations.

Marion's station falls under the must-carry law because it falls in the area of qualified stations.

TCI cable franchises in Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Cape Girardeau County carry five local stations.

WTCT was the only qualified local station that wasn't on TCI's basic tier service. Thus Harms had to add it to his lineup.

In an attempt to find out what cable consumers wanted, Harms conducted a random survey. Cable customers were asked to choose between the Faith/Values channel and Lifetime in a recent billing notice.

Maguire said the survey was misleading because it makes it appear as though a large number of cable customers were surveyed.

"We don't have anything in terms of statistics or what kind of a sample was used so that we know if it accurately reflected the Cape system," Maguire said.

Harms said he asked enough customers to get a feel for what the general cable consumer population wanted.

"I'm not going to say how many we sent out, but it was enough to cost me $4,000," Harms said.

Maguire believes the survey made customers believe there were several options available when in fact there was only two stations from which to choose.

"They should run a real survey by asking every customer what they want or by including in every customer's bill a survey asking them whether they want the VISN channel or Lifetime," Maguire said.

"If he (Maguire) wants to run a survey that includes every customer, let him conduct his own," Harms said.

Maguire said the franchise doesn't have to do anything as far as the city is concerned.

And, other than the must-carry stations, it could put on whatever it wants.

"But I would strongly urge any cable consumer who is unhappy with this move to either call or write TCI and ask them to do a real survey," Maguire said.

Harms is growing weary of such suggestions.

"I'm trying to be as open and fair as I can, but it seems like no matter which way I go I'm dirty-dogged on the thing," he said.