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Some people complain that there's never any good news in the paper. They don't read the business section, especially the stories about our cable-TV behemoth, TCI. Joyful tidings appear there almost daily: TCI earnings drop, TCI losses continue to mount, TCI stock falls ...
Every time I read such an article, I smile, and when the
happy day dawns that I read TCI in Chapter 11, corporate
break-up ordered,
I will break into a lively jig and
start singing loud hosannas.
The most recent insult from TCI arrived a few days ago.
On the outside of the envelope was a flat-out lie. Your
1997 TCI channel line-up card is enclosed! It's got more of
what you're looking for.
I was looking for a return of KRMA, Denver's Channel 6, to the local line-up. TCI removed it last fall to make room for KTVD, the Babewatch channel. The TCI rationale: our system can carry only 35 or so channels, and federal law forced them to add KTVD, so a current offering had to go.
They didn't explain just which federal law, so I nosed
around. There's a must-carry
provision in the Cable
Act of 1992. If you're inside a given city's Area of
Dominant Influence,
and if a TV station in that city
can get its signal to the cable system's distribution
point, then the cable operator must carry the signal.
Thus we must be in the Denver ADI, since we were inflicted with KTVD's brain-rot. But in that case, we should also get the Denver PBS station, right?
In fact, if we're in the Denver ADI, we should also get
KBDI, Channel 12, because must-carry
says the cable
operator has to carry up to three public-TV stations,
providing that their programs don't substantially duplicate
each other -- and my glance at the listings shows very
little, if any, overlap between Channels 6 and 12.
But apparently we're not in the Denver ADI when it comes to public television, because we got left with the Pueblo PBS station, KTSC. The local cable manager said it offered pretty much the same as KRMA, so why are we complaining? But the company has never demonstrated that there was enough overlap to qualify for a must-carry exemption, and I've got other things to do than compare listings. Under the law, that's TCI's job, although TCI seems to obey the law only when it suits the company.
For instance, under the TCI city franchise, the company was supposed to give 30 days' notice before changing programming last fall. It didn't.
Granted, all this is complicated. But as nearly as I can tell, TCI claims that we're in the Denver ADI when it suits TCI, and says we're not in the Denver ADI when that would work to TCI's benefit.
I've called TCI to ask a simple question: Are we or aren't we in the Denver ADI? They promised to call back months ago with an answer, but I still haven't heard.
Over the years, I've often enjoyed C-SPAN. The cable industry noted that C-SPAN was not tax-supported in any way; it was something the industry did for its customers to help us be informed.
TCI jerked C-SPAN and replaced it with Fox News. Rupert
Murdoch, the Fox owner, supposedly offered $10 a head to
cable operators, and TCI decided to serve Murdoch, rather
than its customers. We are not treated like paying
customers; we are treated like livestock to be delivered to
a slaughterhouse. I am a valued TCI customer
only
because TCI can sell my household to the highest
bidder.
TCI pulled the Weather Channel here, although they are putting it back after Carl Miller, our state representative, applied some pressure in Denver. Current national forecasts can be a matter of life and death for people like long-haul truck drivers planning their routes.
Of course, TCI can't restore it until March 1, on account of the 30-day notice provision that the company ignored earlier.
Perhaps I should contact the postal authorities
concerning mail fraud. TCI sent me a pile of blatant lies
like exciting new programs you've been looking for,
when I wasn't looking for anything new, just a restoration
of what we had with C-SPAN and KRMA, and that MSNBC is a
revolutionary 24-hour news and information network,
when in fact, it's the usual corporate journalism and thus
about as revolutionary
as the Wall Street
Journal.
But I really can't go to a postal inspector in good faith. The envelope, after all, did contain more of what I've learned to look for from TCI -- more good channels replaced with bad, more rate increases coming, more double-talk and obfuscation.
And so, I feel pleased that the invisible hand of the
market
is smiting TCI and that its stock continues to
fall. If they really want to show me what I'm looking for,
show me John Malone in rags holding a tin cup and a will
work for food
sign, standing outside the headquarters,
which the sheriff has padlocked in preparation for the
auction.
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