TCI WILL SWITCH 2 CHANNELS

TCI Cable TV, which operates the cable system in Cape Girardeau and Jackson, will swap two cable channels as of Dec. 19. Manager Roger Harms said TCI also is looking at adding pay-per-view service in 1992.

The channel swap will involve WGN, which now appears on Channel 30. It will move to Channel 11. Discovery, which now airs on Channel 11, will relocate to the vacated spot on 30.

The move will allow those customers taking the economy basic service to receive WGN. These customers receive channels 3-13. The current $10.50 price for economy basic service won't change. Harms said the change was made for two reasons.

"We've had several requests from customers that have economy basic only who would like to have WGN," he said.

WGN also is the only broadcast station that now airs on the expanded tier of service, which includes Channels 13 to 36. "It's a broadcast station like TBS, and we wanted to move all those stations to the same tier." In other words, these channels could be picked up by antennae as opposed to channels just broadcast for cable systems.

No rate change will also be made for the expanded service, which runs $9.80. The full service costs customers $21.30.

Harms said a relatively small number of customers take the economy basic service about 450 out of 12,300 cable subscribers in Cape Girardeau and Jackson.

Pay-per-view will probably be coming to the Cape Girardeau and Jackson cable systems in 1992, said Harms.

With pay-per-view, customers pay for individual events such as wrestlemania, concerts, boxing, movies and even the Olympics.

"For example, the last Judds concert was broadcast on pay-per-view. Many Olympic events not shown on network TV can be seen on pay-per-view," he said.

Fees may range from as little as $2 to as high as $30, depending on the event. Typically, there are no more than one or two of these "mega" events each month, he said.

"People have been requesting this. We feel it will go over quite well here," said Harms.

The cable system can make pay-per-view available in two ways: either through a box on individual TVs or through filters subscribers use at home.

"The timing of pay-per-view depends mainly on equipment," he said. "There are also contracts to be signed with pay-per-view vendors. We'd like to introduce pay-per-view as soon as possible the earlier the better."

Harms said the cable system is still trying to resolve the switching problem with VH1 and the Comedy Channel. The two networks are supposed to time share Channel 32, but VH1 has been broadcast full time for the last few months because the equipment that does the switching has been broken.

Harms said they sent the equipment away for repairs once, but that it still didn't work when returned. The second shipment of equipment arrived this week, and he said they hope to return the Comedy Channel to Channel 32 in the near future.

The Comedy Channel will air on Channel 32 in the evenings, with VH1 appearing during the daytime hours.