The transition to digital high definition television continues on cable and satellite as providers rush to add new “HD” versions of cable networks that have been available in standard definition for years.  Your cable or satellite provider is probably already pelting you with mailers and promotional announcements talking about new channels coming to your lineup.  Most of the new channels turn up on those very high channel numbers accessible on your set top box.  Time Warner Cable loves to put a lot of their HD channels on channels starting at 1000, others put them on channel numbers above 100.  Satellite providers already offer dozens of HD channels, and have for sometime now, a point they routinely raise in their advertising.  So cable systems are in a hurry to catch up.

But for some cable systems, there is a capacity problem.  Carrying those high definition signals requires a lot more “bandwidth” (or space) on the cable coming into your home.  Most cable systems in the United States were last upgraded in the early 1990s to accommodate the launch of “digital cable,” which actually has nothing to do with the recent digital TV transition, or HD for that matter.  Digital cable channels are simply compressed, allowing more channels (often up to six or more) to fit in the amount of space it takes to provide one analog channel (such as those you watch on television sets around your home that do not have those big set top boxes attached to them).

In the 1990s, we suddenly saw hundreds of new channels arrive on digital cable, from niche cable networks like Current and History International, to premium movie channels which suddenly had six to eight extra channels, to a myriad of pay per view and on demand channels.  We even got cable radio like Music Choice.

But the challenge of trying to provide 100 or more digital HD channels on today’s cable systems has resulted in some creative thinking by the nation’s cable operators to fit everything into the space they have today, without spending millions of dollars to once again upgrade their cable systems.

Some cable systems like Comcast, the nation’s largest, have been dropping a dozen or more analog channels (which use a lot of space) and moving them to the digital cable tier.  Others, like Time Warner Cable and Bright House, are using a new technology called Switched Digital Video (SDV).  Simplified, SDV only sends the digital channels people in your neighborhood are watching down the cable line.  The cable operator assumes not everyone on your street will watch every digital channel at the same time, so why waste space sending Fox Business News or C-SPAN 3 down the cable if nobody nearby is watching it?

Motorola released a short video which explains how the system works:

The trick, of course, is to make the system as transparent as possible for cable subscribers. Who wants to wait around for a channel to appear as you flip through them with your remote control. The technology is designed to make it look like those “switched video” channels are no different than any others. For subscribers using set top boxes, it has not been difficult to make the whole thing transparent to consumers.  The only time a problem can pop up is if the cable company runs out of room because lots of people are watching lots of different channels.  Sometimes the cable company makes the “party line” too big, and that increases the chances the system will run out of room at peak viewing times, and someone gets a black screen with a message saying the channel they want to watch is “temporarily unavailable.” When someone down the street switches channels or turns the set off, there is once again room to show more channels.

If you do not watch digital cable, or have a basic cable subscription that does not have a set top box, none of this will matter to you. Analog cable channels are not provided to you this way.

If there is no room in your neighborhood to show additional SDV channels, or if the cable system thinks you are no longer watching the channel, you may see this message on your television.

If you use a “CableCARD” provided by the cable company to plug into your HD television, or if you use an HD TiVo Digital Video Recorder without a cable box, you could run into another problem. The current generation of CableCARDs often cannot communicate with the cable company’s SDV system.

That means when you try to tune a channel provided using SDV, you end up with an error message saying the channel is not available. Those CableCARDs that can successfully request an SDV-provided channel may not be able to respond to the cable company when its software periodically asks (in the background) whether your TV set is still watching an SDV channel. If the equipment cannot respond that you are, the system will assume you are not and the channel will go blank.

Sometimes, the cable system will display a message and let you press a key on your remote to let the system know you are still watching the channel, and do not want it to go away.  Unfortunately, without the two way communication that the cable company-provided set top box or add-on equipment provides, there may not be a way to get your request back to the cable company.

The cable industry will ultimately need to release a new generation of CableCARDs that are fully capable of two-way communications.  Until that happens, some cable companies are loaning out, often at no charge for at least a year, special add on equipment to deal with this problem.

A Tuning Adapter is a small set top box that adds two-way capability to your existing equipment, so it can “talk” back and forth with the cable system.  Some cable companies, like Bright House, will provide up to two of these devices for no charge for 12 months.  After that (and for each additional box), the rental fee is $3.80 per month for each Adapter.  Time Warner Cable provides them for free.

Uh Oh... the cable system wants to doublecheck you are still watching this channel. If your equipment can't communicate with the cable system, it will assume you are no longer watching, and turn it off.

It’s unfortunate existing CableCARDs can’t work properly without requiring the extra equipment, but when the original CableCARD specifications were developed, SDV wasn’t available.

Eventually, most cable systems will either upgrade systems to handle more channels and services, or will slowly move more and more analog cable channels to digital, opening up lots of additional space for high definition cable and broadcast signals, as well as on-demand and broadband services.

The newest generation systems from Verizon (FiOS) and AT&T’s U-verse use fiber optic cable, which has tons of capacity to handle everything.  Verizon installs the fiber cables right to your home.  AT&T installs it on the poles in your neighborhood, and then sends only the individual channel(s) you are watching across the copper wire phone cable already in your home.  Since AT&T doesn’t send any channels you are not watching across your phone cable, capacity isn’t much of an issue with U-verse.

There are two Tuning Adapter brands, Motorola and Cisco. Your cable system will send you the one that will work for you.

Satellite television relies on a fleet on satellites to deliver channels to subscribers, either on a national “beam” which reaches every home, or a focused narrow “beam” which only reaches small regions of the country (which is used to deliver local television channels).  To add capacity, satellite providers launch additional satellites, or find new ways to compress their existing channels to make room for additional programming.

Tennis Channel ad being run in New York print media (click to enlarge)

Expensive sports channels frequently run into roadblocks when cable systems refuse to pony up the several-dollars-a-month fees charged for every subscriber who can watch the channel.  Sports programming is, hands down, the most expensive type of programming carried on cable television basic/standard lineups.  Getting the rights to show major sporting events is usually decided through bidding battles.  Before 1992, most television rights were won by one of the broadcast television networks, who were the only ones capable of turning in the big bids.  But by the mid-1990s, basic cable sports networks like ESPN started competitively bidding for sports programming — and won.

Recouping the multi-million dollar bids through advertising alone wasn’t enough, so sports networks began increasing their fees charged to cable systems for carrying their programming.  In turn, that helped fuel ever-increasing cable rates for consumers, even for those who have never watched any sports-related programming.

In an effort to slow down rate increases, cable systems began to create special “sports tiers” on their digital cable lineups.  For $4-6 a month, sports aficionados could subscribe to a package typically including 10 or more regional sports channels, as well as those devoted to individual sports.  Since cable networks typically charge cable systems based on the number of subscribers who can watch, this dramatically reduced the costs of carrying such networks.  Only those who want the sports tier need be charged.

Of course, sports cable networks do not like specialty sports tiers.  They can earn much higher revenue (and get a higher profile) if they collect from every basic/standard customer.  Some sports networks steadfastly refuse to allow their channels to be carried on such sports tiers, to varying degrees of success.  Usually, an obstinate network tries to leverage the value of their programming (and the anger from sports fans denied access) by running public relations campaigns telling fans to bug the local cable company to add the network to their basic lineup.  It’s then up to the cable company to try and explain why they want to carry the channel on a special sports tier, one that neither the programmer will accept, nor the subscriber, who is not thrilled to learn he has to pay even more to watch the channel in question.

That brings us to the latest squabble — The Tennis Channel and New York City cable systems.

Time Warner Cable

Time Warner Cable’s New York City system has opted out of providing the free two week preview of The Tennis Channel that it is promoting in several other cities where it has cable systems.  That’s annoying for tennis fans, who this year won’t find the U.S. Open on the USA Network, where it has traditionally been televised in years past.  Instead, it will be found on ESPN 2, which is carried by Time Warner Cable and can easily be found on the lineup, and the much more obscure Tennis Channel, which is “buried” in a digital sports programming tier Time Warner Cable sells for $3.95 a month.  Only a small percentage of subscribers pay the four bucks a month for more sports, so that effectively means subscribers will have to take what they can get from ESPN 2.

Why did Time Warner decide not to carry the two week free preview?  Why give it away for free when you can make money selling it:

Ken Solomon, the Tennis Channel’s chief executive, said it was surprised when Time Warner said it was not considering New York. The New York system had carried free previews of the last three French Opens — all that the cable operator had been offered. “They changed their mind, saying they wanted to sell the sports tier, it’s the U.S. Open, it’s in New York and they’re in New York, and they shouldn’t have to give it away for free,” Solomon said.

He added: “It’s disappointing, but it’s not a giant issue. At the end of the day, we’ll be in 54 million homes, not 55.5 million. This is not a business maker or a business breaker.”

Why didn’t USA Network simply keep providing coverage themselves?  The cost.  Inflation in the bids for sports programming television rights is just as outrageous as the ever-increasing cable television bill consumers face every month:

USA no longer had much interest in sports or in paying $22 million a year to show the United States Open, regardless of the tradition it had become. So ESPN stepped in, agreeing to pay $140 million over six years to gain the cable rights to its fourth Grand Slam tournament. And the Tennis Channel, seeking credibility and more subscribers, also coveted a fourth Grand Slam tournament and sublicensed its coverage from ESPN. CBS, of course, is still the tournament’s broadcast partner and has not surrendered the singles semifinals and finals to cable.

So New Yorkers will either need to pay to get The Tennis Channel on the digital sports tier, find another provider that does carry the channel on its basic/standard lineup, or do without.

Cablevision

At least Time Warner customers can subscribe to a package to get The Tennis Channel.  In suburban New York, particularly on Long Island, Cablevision subscribers can’t get the network at all because of a nasty spat between the channel’s owners and the cable company.

The Tennis Channel executives were just annoyed with Time Warner burying their channel on a sports tier, but they are tearing their hair out over Cablevision, which wants $5.95 a month for their digital sports tier.  The channel refused to sell to Cablevision under those terms and declared the negotiations were at an impasse.  But a creative employee at Cablevision figured out they could theoretically get access to the network despite the failed negotiations.  The cable company, one of the nation’s largest, joined the National Cable Television Cooperative, which serves the nation’s smallest family owned and independent cable systems.  Since volume discounts are provided to cable systems based on the number of subscribers they have, the NCTC was formed to pool small cable systems together to get a volume discount price for programming.

The NCTC already has a contract with The Tennis Channel for its member systems, so Cablevision simply hopped on board the NCTC contract.

Not so fast, comes the reply from The Tennis Channel, who turned out to have the last word for now.  They have refused to activate Cablevision’s receiving equipment to receive their encrypted satellite signal.

Cablevision insists that it has a valid deal to carry the channel on its sports tier and is portraying the Tennis Channel as the intransigent party that is denying fans access to its United States Open coverage. The Tennis Channel says the deal is not valid and has not flipped the switch to enable Cablevision to carry it.

Cablevision said that the Tennis Channel is “refusing to do the right thing.”

Assuming negotiations over the creative NCTC “solution” to problem fails, the next chapter in this saga will likely include the lawyers.

Cable operators in Canada and the United States continue their purge of secondary PBS stations from analog cable lineups from coast to coast.  Subscribers in many communities where multiple PBS stations can be found on the cable lineup are most likely to be impacted.

Some lineup changes have sparked local viewer campaigns to preserve the stations, others draw protests mostly from the stations themselves.  In many American cities with several nearby PBS stations that have traditionally enjoyed carriage, cable operators and PBS have agreed that cable companies can keep one PBS station on the analog basic cable lineup, and switch others to space-saving digital service tiers.  In Canada, cable operators are moving away from over-the-air reception of public broadcasters just across the American border, preferring to grab stations from Detroit or Seattle, well-distributed across Canada by fiber and satellite.

Rogers Cable Plans to Dump Watertown, NY and Erie, PA PBS Stations For A Detroit PBS Station

Rogers Cable, one of Canada’s largest cable companies, is furiously cost-cutting in order to preserve profits in a troubled economy.  One way to save money, apparently, is to dispense with two over-the-air PBS stations Rogers imported for its Ottawa and London, Ontario cable subscribers.  In their place, a fiber-fed signal from the PBS affiliate in Detroit.

First to Watertown, a small city on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario, in northern New York state.  WPBS-TV, the local PBS station, has been a part of the eastern Ontario cable lineup for decades.  The station has carefully cultivated a relationship with its Canadian viewers in and around Ottawa for years, and has more than 1,600 Canadian members contributing money to keep WPBS on the air, representing 23% of the station’s membership.  The station also promotes and sponsors Canadian cultural events, and is extremely sensitive to the tastes of its Canadian audience, hence the station’s strong lineup of British television shows.  Rogers gave WPBS no respect, and elected to notify subscribers it was dropping the station, replacing it with WTVS-TV in Detroit, several hundred miles away.  The station found out when a viewer e-mailed WPBS to complain about the decision.

The news stunned station management.

“We didn’t see this coming. We heard absolutely nothing about it,” said Lynn Brown, the station’s director of programming and development. “It would have been nice after a 30-year-plus relationship for them to call and say, ‘We’re considering this’ and give us an opportunity to respond if they wanted us to improve something.  It took a good half hour just kind of staring at one another and getting over that shock,” she said.

Brown said she spoke to a Rogers official who told her there was no requirement to notify the station in advance because it is American and not governed by Canadian broadcasting regulations.

She was told the switch is part of a “streamlining” effort by Rogers to make the channel lineup more “efficient” for viewers.

Rogers Cable also told the Ottawa Citizen:

“Over the years our customers have asked for the PBS Detroit feed, so we’ve decided to replace PBS Watertown with PBS Detroit because it offers higher quality reception and signal reliability. The PBS Detroit feed is delivered through our fibre network rather than through antenna (over the air), which gives us redundancy through our network and improves reliability in poor weather conditions. Typically, our communication is with PBS in Detroit. We called the Watertown station to apologize for the oversight.”

The decision outraged subscribers, who have been pelting Rogers with complaint calls and e-mail.  Several angry letters were published in Ottawa newspapers, a protest Facebook group was formed, and complaints were filed with the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Canada’s version of the Federal Communications Commission.

The protest worked.  Late Thursday, WPBS received word from Rogers they had changed their mind and would retain WPBS on the lineup.

Meanwhile, in London, southwestern Ontario, Rogers customers accustomed to watching PBS programming from WQLN-TV in Erie were also going to see a nearby PBS station replaced by WTVS in Detroit.  WQLN received more than $200,000 in contributions from London area viewers, and that funding is critical to WQLN in a year that Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell proposed eliminating $800,000 in state funding for the public broadcaster.  Combined with the loss of viewership in London, the station could have gone off the air altogether.

Late Thursday, Rogers notified WQLN it would also retain its signal for London area viewers, if the station agreed to spend between $30,000-50,000 to pay for a direct fiber link to deliver the station signal to Rogers master control center in Toronto.

Southern Ohio to Lose Half of Its Public Stations on Time Warner Cable

In southern Ohio, Time Warner Cable customers are about to lose half of the public broadcast channels they used to receive.  The Cincinnati Enquirer had the bad news:

Covington’s (Kentucky) WCVN-TV (Channel 54) and Dayton’s WPTD-TV (Channel 16) will be dropped from Time Warner’s most affordable service level Aug. 25, says Mike Pedelty, vice president for communications.

Only CET (Channel 48) and Oxford’s WPTO-TV (Channel 14) will remain on basic cable.

At the same time, Time Warner will cancel six public TV channels from its more popular digital level – CET’s Kids channel, plus WPTO-TV in high definition and all digital multicast channels.

Overall, Time Warner will drop eight of 22 public TV channels in a major channel realignment. Time Warner will replace Channel 16 on basic cable with the Home Shopping Network.

“We are making changes to prevent duplicate programming,” Pedelty says.

In addition to Cincinnati and Hamilton County, WPTD-TV will lose viewers in Butler and Warren counties, where some residents work or shop in Dayton.

The stations affected weren’t happy to learn of the news, and are meeting with Time Warner Cable in an effort to retain service.  Cable customers are not happy about the changes either, especially considering at least one of those channels will go to a home shopping channel instead.

West Virginia Battled Comcast To Preserve Statewide PBS Station

Coverage area of West Virginia Public Television

In West Virginia back in late May, Comcast customers in the state were notified that if they wanted to continue receiving the statewide PBS/public broadcasting station network, dubbed West Virginia Public Television, they would need to upgrade to digital cable service.  That’s because viewers in northern West Virginia were only going to receive WQED-TV Pittsburgh, and areas in the eastern panhandle of the state would receive PBS from a station in Washington, DC.

Once again, viewer complaints and West Virginia Public TV management managed a compromise with Comcast – retention of the WVPBS service on basic cable, but placed on the system in a digital format.  Comcast customers received free, very basic, digital decoder units for two years to continue to receive the channels.

Expect additional controversy in the months ahead if your cable system carries multiple PBS stations.

WDSC-TV was dropped from Bright House Network's basic cable service, requiring customers to obtain a set top converter box.

Across the country, particularly where television markets are located close together, cable systems have often carried more than one PBS station on their channel lineup.  Public television stations are often established by more than one group in larger cities.  Some stations might be administered by a non-profit corporation established to run the station, others are often run by local or nearby universities.  Each PBS station gets to choose its own programming lineup, and many develop their own priorities.  Local university-run stations often focus on educational programming.  Independent non-profit corporations often run a varied entertainment and educational lineup.  In the very largest cities, some PBS stations focus on ethnic programming and locally produced shows.

Bright House Networks chose WMFE Orlando as their primary PBS station, leaving Channel 24 available to Orlando area basic cable customers.

In central Florida, the Daytona Beach-Orlando-Melbourne television market has two PBS affiliates.  WMFE, located in Orlando, is the dominant PBS station in the region, operating from Orange County, within Orlando.  WDSC, located near Daytona Beach in Volusia County, is easily seen by most people in the Orlando area, but is not usually considered the primary PBS station by those residents.  WDSC is run by Daytona State College.

Major cable operators nationwide negotiated an agreement with PBS over cable carriage of public broadcasters that got them a free pass to have to carry just one PBS station on their “basic cable” service, typically analog.  Most secondary PBS stations could still get carried on cable systems, but on their “digital programming tier.”  In greater Orlando, Bright House Networks, the dominant cable system, chose WMFE Channel 24 as their primary PBS station, and placed WDSC Channel 15 on their digital tier, requiring many viewers with older televisions to rent a digital set top converter box to continue to receive it.

In mid-June, when the nation transitioned to digital television, WDSC disappeared from the basic lineup.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal picked up the story when viewers noticed:

WDSC's coverage extends throughout central Florida

Cable customers who have analog televisions, get only basic cable and don’t spring for the extra $1 a month can’t get the local public television station. Officials weren’t sure how many were affected.

“You’re completely out of luck if you take the basic tier of cable service,” said David Byron, spokesman for Volusia County. “This is a big deal for us and it comes as a bit of a surprise.”

Both counties have agreements with the Daytona State College network to transmit emergency information in the event of a disaster such as a hurricane.

Daytona State College told Volusia officials Monday they received 250 calls on Friday and so many on answering machines over the weekend that the calls couldn’t be counted.

College and Bright House officials said callers are complaining they were not notified of the change before Friday’s national transmission switch and the need for the box.

It’s not fair for customers to have to pay $1 extra for emergency information, said Charlie Craig, emergency manager for Volusia County.

“It’s just one more hit” for people, Craig said, and it’s not likely that people on limited incomes will spend the extra money.

Bruce Dunn, WDSC manager, said the two stations are complementary in that WDSC shows 75 percent local programming and 25 percent national PBS programs while WMFE shows 100 percent national PBS programs.

“Bright House could add back the Dayton Beach-based station if it wanted,” Dunn said. “We are urging our customers to call Bright House. The squeaky wheel gets the oil.”

Volusia County Chairman Frank Bruno plans to bring up the issue at the council meeting on Thursday and hopes to get a resolution encouraging the cable provider to change its mind.

“That’s a critical issue for Volusia County right now, especially in light of the hurricane season and everything,” Bruno said.

Bright House customers are lucky to be able to obtain a converter box for just $1 a month, much less than in many other areas.  But members of WDSC are even luckier.  Bright House Networks and WDSC this week announced it was giving away free digital converters to station members who have contributed at least $40 to WDSC in the past year, as long as they were also customers of Bright House Networks.

WDSC and Bright House Networks offer free

The station is also assisting viewers who have not purchased digital-ready HD televisions yet, with a special wholesale discount program offering station members extremely low pricing on digital-ready TVs.

When cable systems run out of room to handle the increasing number of High Definition digital channels becoming available, it has two choices — upgrade the system to accommodate the growing number of networks or make room for them by getting rid of analog channels which occupy more space.  Upgrading can cost a cable system millions of dollars.  Switching to an all digital lineup can annoy subscribers, because they will require a digital ready set top cable box for every television set hooked up to cable.

Cable overbuilder RCN, which moves into existing cable television system territories and wires their own cable to compete, has chosen the latter, getting rid of its analog channel lineup of dozens of channels, to free up space.  Up to a half dozen standard definition digital channels can occupy the same space that just one analog channel can, which means switching to all digital delivery will give RCN plenty of room to grow in the future.

RCN will begin the transition to digital starting in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia.  Allentown will be the first community to be switched to digital service, which the company claims will dramatically increase the number of standard and HD channels it can offer to customers.

“By going all-digital, RCN will be able to enhance the overall customer experience for our customers, increasing our HD channels at launch to more than triple the current offering — with most being able to receive 100 HD. This total will dramatically exceed what our cable competitors currently offer, making us leaders in delivering HD and customized cable packages in an all-digital world,” said RCN President of Residential Markets John Filipowicz. “This initiative, known as Project Analog Crush, frees up bandwidth so we can provide our Lehigh Valley customers with an explosion of entertainment choices and have more expanded Basic Digital TV channels than ever before. This additional bandwidth will also help with future broadband enhancements.”

At least 30 days prior to the conversion, subscribers will be notified by mail, with additional notifications arriving as the switchover date approaches. Beyond the traditional notifications mailed to customers, RCN will also provide information through billing inserts, information on its website, and local outreach meetings. RCN will also send “voice-casts” to its customers that consist of telephone announcements providing additional notifications to customers of the upcoming move to an all-digital platform.

RCN customers can obtain one converter box that works with non-HD channels for $3.95 per month, ($6.95 for each additional box) or an HD-compatible box for $9.95 per month, ($11.95 for each additional box.)  The converter box rental fee will likely be the most controversial aspect of the digital conversion, as subscribers will now require a set top box for every television hooked up to cable service.  Many customers currently rely on the analog lineup alone for additional television sets in the home so they don’t require multiple boxes.

After the conversion is complete, RCN will introduce an improved digital program guide, dramatically expand “on-demand” offerings, and launch several new channels for subscribers.  RCN will also introduce near a-la-carte cable lineups for customers who wish to customize their cable service to include only the types of channels they are interested in receiving, and paying for.

RCN also promises upgrades to its broadband service, which currently provides three tiers of service — 3Mbps/768kbps for $22.95 promotional rate ($53 after promotion), 10Mbps/800kbps for $32.95 promotional rate ($63 after promotion), or 20Mbps/2Mbps for $88 per month.

In Pennsylvania, RCN currently serves the following franchised communities of Alburtis, Allen Township, Allentown City, Bangor Borough, Bath Borough, Bethlehem City, Bethlehem Township, Bethlehem Township (Easton), Bushkill Township, Catasauqua Borough, Chapman Borough, Coopersburg, Coplay Borough, East Allen Township, East Bangor Borough, Easton City, Forks Township, Emmaus Borough, Fountain Hill Borough, Freemansburg Borough, Glendon Borough, Hanover Township (Lehigh County) & (Northampton County), Heidelberg Township, Hellertown Borough, Lehigh Township, Lower Macungie Township, Lower Nazareth Township, Lower Saucon Township, Lowhill Township, Macungie Borough, Moore Township, Nazareth Borough, North Catasauqua Borough, North Whitehall Township, Northampton Borough, Palmer Township, Pen Argyl Borough, Plainfield Township, Reiglesville, Roseto Borough, Salisbury Township, Slatington Borough, South Whitehall Township, Stockertown Borough, Tatamy Borough, Upper Macungie Township, Upper Nazareth Township, Upper Saucon Township, Walnutport, Washington Township, West Easton Borough, Whitehall Township, Williams Township, Wilson Borough, and Wind Gap Borough. RCN in Philadelphia serves the communities of Folcroft, Ridley Township, Sharon Hill, Eddystone, Norwood, Prospect Park, Collingdale, Colwyn, Glenolden, Ridley Park, Upper Darby, Tinicum, Morton, Rutledge, Millbourne, Darby Borough, Darby Township, Clifton Heights, East Lansdowne, Yeadon, and Lansdowne.

Binghamton, New York

The city of Binghamton, in southern New York, is asking for an increase in its franchise fee from Time Warner Cable.  Franchise fees are paid by cable operators to the communities they serve in return for the right to wire those communities for cable.  The city is seeking a percentage increase in their franchise fee, from 3% of cable revenues to 5%.

Cable operators routinely break these fees out on customer’s cable bills, recovering the fees from consumers.  Any franchise fee increase will likely be passed along to customers dollar for dollar, something that concerns hard-pressed New Yorkers, already paying the nation’s highest taxes and fees, and facing even more as the state government attempts to cope with a budget shortfall.

WICZ in Binghamton has the story.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WICZ Binghamton City Wants Increase in Franchise Fee 7-21-2009.FLV[/flv]

Residents in New York City who subscribe to Time Warner Cable will discover a whole lot of moving going on this summer.  That’s because cable networks might be paying, or making other “considerations” for the New York cable company in return for more favorable channel positions — the lower the channel number the better.

Cable operators have long recognized that the lower a channel number assigned to a network, the higher its ratings.  Subscribers scanning the dial for something to watch typically start at the lowest channel number, and scan their way up the dial.  Most usually find something to watch long before they reach the highest channel numbers.  Networks recognize this as well, and many complain loudly about their channel positions on cable systems.  Some even contractually limit where a cable system can place their network.

Anything above channel 50 starts to get into Channel Siberia — the vast empty space where networks are lost to viewers who never seem to find them.  Being thrown onto a channel number in the hundreds, or worse, the thousands, can be a disaster for viewership.

The winners of the channel position battle loudly proclaim victory when they pull off a favorable channel change.  NBC Universal did just that in celebrating Oxygen moving from channel 61, where the snow is falling, to a nice and comfortable channel 12.  Mun2, a Latino network, has been in the deep freeze on channel 126, but will drop to channel 42.  These channel changes take place on August 19th.

“The new Oxygen and mun2 channel positions are extremely favorable and will greatly contribute to the networks’ success as they continue to grow in both ratings and distribution,” Mary Murano, executive vice president of TV Networks Distribution at NBC Universal, said in the release. “We believe Time Warner Cable customers — our viewers — will appreciate the easy access to Oxygen and mun2′s buzz worthy programming.”

But that’s not all.  Several other networks are moving around the dial, potentially confusing subscribers looking for them after the channel change.  Although Time Warner Cable doesn’t admit dollars changing hands are behind the changes, it seems likely “considerations” are involved in channel changes which routinely irritate subscribers.

Here is a roundup of what’s moving where in the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens:

BET: Moving from channel 42 to channel 37

Cartoon Network: Moves from channel 22 to channel 61

Cartoon Network HD: Moves from channel 722 to channel 761

CNN: Moves from channel 10 to channel 78

CNN HD: Moves from channel 710 to channel 778

Discovery Kids: Moves from channel 110 to channel 22

FX: Moves from channel 37 to channel 10

FXHD: Moves from channel 737 to channel 710

Golf HD: Moves from channel 779 to channel 482

ID: Investigation Discovery: Moves from 113 to channel 23

Lifetime: Moves from channel 12 to channel 62

Lifetime Movie Network: Moves from channel 62 to channel 80

Lifetime Movie Network HD: Moves from channel 762 to channel 780

Mun2: Moves from channel 126 to channel 42

NHL Network HD: Moves from channel 795 to channel 468

Oxygen: Moves from channel 61 to channel 12

Smithsonian HD: Moves from channel 789 to channel 795

TruTV: Moves from channel 23 to channel 79

VS HD: Moves from channel 794 to channel 481

The following new channels are also slated to launch on Time Warner Cable’s NYC systems August 19th:

Big Ten HD On Demand on channel 471

Headline News HD on channel 758

ID: Investigation Discovery HD on channel 723

Lifetime HD on channel 762

Outdoor Channel HD on channel 480

PBS Create on channel 169

PBS World on channel 164

Smithsonian HD On Demand on channel 794

TCM HD on channel 782

Comcast’s agreement with ESPN to rollout ESPNU, its college sports network, has begun to bear fruit as Comcast unveils the channel on many of its systems nationwide.

ESPNU provides college sports fans with more than 550 live events annually and televises some of the top Division I conferences in the nation, including: the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, MAC, SEC, Sun Belt and WAC.  The network also has a wide-ranging, long-term agreement with the NCAA that includes extensive coverage of 22 NCAA Championships, including sports from each of the three collegiate seasons.

Already available from Comcast’s competitors, including AT&T U-verse, Verizon FiOS, DirecTV and DISH Network, the new channel will appear on Comcast’s digital programming tier often marketed as Digital Classic.  The network is not available to standard analog service customers.  For digital customers, checking your local channel lineup is essential as Comcast systems have introduced it on different channel numbers on just about every system.

In Connecticut alone, ESPNU’s channel position varies:

ESPNU is on channel 735 in Hartford as well as in the towns of Andover, Avon, Berlin, Bloomfield, Bolton, Bristol, Burlington, Canton, East Hartford, Ellington, Farmington, Hebron, Marlborough, New Britain, Plainville, Simsbury, Tolland, Vernon, West Hartford and Windsor.

It’s on channel 178 in Bozrah, Colchester, East Haddam, Franklin, Haddam Neck, Libson, Lyme, Norwich, Old Lyme, Preston, Salem and Sprague.

It’s on 154 in Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethany, Derby, Middlebury, Naugatuck, Oxford, Plymouth, Prospect, Seymour, Shelton, Waterbury and Wolcott.

And it’s on channel 279 most other places on Comcast digital, including the city of Hartford.

Comcast customers can also enjoy ESPN360, ESPN’s 24/7 broadband sports network which offers more than 3,500 live, global sports events annually. ESPN360.com is available at no additional charge through Comcast.net to Comcast High-Speed Internet customers.

MSNBC this week launched MSNBC HD, the High Definition version of the NBC cable news network, with a new on-air look and a new programming lineup, mostly consisting of additional specialty opinion shows.  MSNBC in HD will launch at different times on different cable systems. It launched on Cablevision on June 29 and will be a part of Time Warner Cable’s lineup this month. By the end of August, MSNBC HD will be available in 11 million homes.

The “new on air look” has not been particularly pretty, especially the horizontal bar across the top of the screen, left there throughout the broadcasts and containing little more than the network logo and occasional time checks and slogans.  It needs to go.

A new news-ticker at the bottom is busier than the old news crawler, but occupies less screen real estate.  I’m not sure who is going to read this, considering the text size is quite small.  It’s simply more distraction, all thanks to a trend in cable news post-9/11 that has never gone away.

The new shows:

At 9:00ET, the news roundup is gone, replaced with “Morning Meeting” with Dylan Ratigan from 9-11am.  The first week of shows has not been terribly impressive — more of the same kind of talking head banter we just watched from Morning Joe for the three hours preceding.  The set is also austere.  Outside of Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough, Dylan Ratigan is the third person on MSNBC who likes to hear himself talk.  When he talks, time stops.  When someone else talks, it’s ‘hurry up so I can get our other guests in.’  A gracious host learns to hush up and listen.

At 11am, Carlos Watson anchors an hour of straight news, but I’m typically long gone by 11.  It’s a shame Dylan couldn’t run from 10-12 and leave an hour at 9am for actual news and less opinion.

At 12pm, Dr. Nancy (Snyderman) is on for an hour of medical-related news (which this week was an excuse to talk about how many pills Michael Jackson was popping.)  I am not sure how interested people are going to be in a medical news show at 12 noon.  I expect a lot of viewers interested in news are watching the lunchtime local news on broadcast stations.

Andrea Mitchell continues at 1-2pm, doing straight-up news.  David Shuster, who always seems to be yelling, joins Tamron Hall (who doesn’t) from 3-5pm for more news.

MSNBC seems to be essentially creating a talk radio format for television, with personality-driven current affairs and opinion programming blocks.  It gives viewers a reason to tune in on slow news days to see their favorite personalities, but is still flexible enough to wipe all of that out for breaking news.

Verizon FiOS continues to offer the largest number of HD channels in the Orange County region of California, offering more than double the number of HD channels that cable operators Cox and Time Warner provide to their respective customers.  Cox Cable has just signed an agreement with Viacom to introduce its HD networks to the Cox Cable lineup effective at the end of July.  But even with the additions, Cox remains in distant fifth place behind telephone company video systems and satellite television providers.