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Comcast Press Release, 02/11/00
Comcast's acquisition of local Time Warner customers will affect some channel lineups.
By John Strauss/Staff Writer
Indianapolis Star
Friday, February 11, 2000
Cable television rates should stay the same....at least for a while when Comcast Corporation begins serving thousands of new customers from rival Time Warner Cable this spring, a Comcast executive said.
Time Warner agreed late last year to exchange its Indianapolis area cable systems for Comcast systems in Florida.
The City's Cable Franchise Board will hold a public hearing on the deal, known as a franchise transfer, at 2:30 p.m. Monday, February 14 in Room 260 of the City-County Building.
Time Warner has about 120,000 area customers, including 70,000 in Indianapolis and the remainder in Carmel, Zionsville, other nearby communities and the City of Marion.
The hearing is the first step toward approval of the transfer by the City-County Council, which could vote on it at its April 10 meeting.
Though no immediate price of service changes are planned, Time Warner customers would eventually be able to buy digital music and video services, along with high speed access to the Internet now offered by Comcast.
"We don't have a time line (to the service changes) and we have not discussed a rate structure at all," Comcast spokesman Mark Apple said.
Time Warner's Marion County customers now pay about 10 percent more than Comcast's for expanded basic cable service (no premium channels), $39.04 compared with $35.50.
The transfer, though it might go unnoticed at first by customers, is considered a major turning point by proponents of public-access television.
The City formerly had a free channel and production facilities open to independent producers, but those were eliminated in the latest transfer agreement between the cable companies and local government.
A study frequently cited by Public Access of Indianapolis found that 69 percent of Time Warner subscribers and 74 percent from Comcast backed "a local cable channel freely available for sharing programs, ideas and creative pursuits."
"This is an opportunity for the City, in response to what the community wants, to attach conditions to the approval of the transfer," said Andrea Price, the group's president.
"It's important that the customers, as well as the shareholders, benefit from some agreement to merge."
Price said the City-County-Council, in exchange for agreeing to the transfer, should insist that the jobs of Time Warner's local employees be protected. Comcast should also provide a community-access channel and a media center, paid for from private sources and the franchise fees already paid by the City, she said.
Even without public access, Comcast will have a big job just blending the two services into one lineup of channels.
Time Warner has these services not available on Comcast: Turner Classic Movies, the Independent Film Channel, Classic Sports Network, Univision, Court TV, Country Music Television, Fox News Network and the Travel Channel.
On Comcast, but not on Time Warner, are the TV Guide Channel, local weather service channels from WTHR (channel 13) and WISH (channel 8), Romance Classics, the Game Show Network, Outdoor Life, Great American Country and Style, a channel devoted to fashion.
Comcast has only one open channel on its system now, Apple said.
"So we're going to have to take a long, hard look at what we're going to keep and what we'll delete from the lineup."
Local cable already has four government and eduactional-access channels carrying council sessions, public meetings, college classes and other material.
"I have to believe that Classic Sports Network would be a more popular decision with a vast majority of our customers than another access channel," Apple said.
Carlton Curry, chairman of the Cable Franchise Board, said it appears the Time Warner-Comcast deal amounts to only a franchise transfer.
If that's the case, Comcast could argue that the franchise agreement, the cable company's contract with local government for the right to use the public rights of way, wasn't being reopened. That, in turn, would mean that special requirements like an access channel could not be added.
"But there are four other (Cable Franchise) Board members who might have a different view," Curry said. "there are 29 council members who might have a different view, and a mayor who might have a different view."
Conditions attached to franchise transfers aren't known. In Loudoun County, Va., near Washington, the board of supervisors agreed to a sale between two cable companies after they agreed to raise basic rates for at least two years. The county hired consultants and a lawyer to help negotiate the agreement.
Elsewhere, there are 2,000 community media centers in the country, producing programs for about 5,000 access channels, according to the Alliance for Community Media in Washington.
"Indianapolis is really alone when it comes to having no public access," said Bunnie Riedel, the group's executive director.
It's one of those places that just stands out because the community cannot communicate with itself, as you can in Chicago, and Seattle, and New York, and Salina Kansas."
In Indiana, Fort Wayne's library-based access system often gets high marks for an easy-to-use, well-funded system. Riedel said that's not surprising.
"Access centers are becoming more and more like libraries. They're becoming full-service media centers for the community."
Marion County cable rates at a glance
The pending swap between Time Warner Cable and Comcast will leave virtually all customers in Indianapolis served by Comcast. (Residents in some non-Uni-Gov areas of Marion County are served by other cable companies.) No immediate rate change is expected, according to Comcast. Here's a look at monthly rates for basic services now:
Limited basic service
Includes local broadcast stations, local government and educational access channels as well as the Weather Channel.
Comcast: $10.95
Time Warner Cable: $10.65
Expanded basic service
No premium channels.
Comcast: $35.50
Time Warner Cable: $39.04
Source: Comcast & Time Warner
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