Charter Communications customers will see some changes in their
basic cable lineup effective Tuesday.
Charter Communications customers will see some changes in their basic cable lineup effective Tuesday.
Company officials decided to shake up their cable offerings to eliminate duplication of networks and to add two Spanish channels.
“We looked at our lineup and some channels have similar programming on them. It doesn’t make sense to keep doing this. We don’t have enough Spanish channels,” said Heinz Ludke, the company’s Gilroy marketing manager. “We think our current lineup underserves the Spanish-speaking customers we do have, and we think (the change) will help us add new customers.”
The change in the lineup pulls KRON-4 and KPIX-5 to add two Spanish channels – TeleFutura, KDJT-33, and Azteca America, KTNC-42.
Beginning Tuesday, cable channel 4 will become KCBA-35 Fox (moving from Channel 8), cable channel 8 will be KTNC-42 Azteca America and cable channel 10 will change to KDJT-33 TeleFutura. Charter also will add the WB to cable channel 21.
The changes affect Charter customers in Hollister, San Juan Bautista, Tres Pinos and Ridgemark.
Along with PBS and NBC, CBS and FOX were among four networks duplicated in the company’s limited basic service, Ludke said – and up to 67 percent of programming on the duplicated networks was the same on each channel.
“What we decided was, is that a good use of our channel space?” he asked.
The company received requests from customers for the two new Spanish-language channels and felt it was losing customers because it did not have the programming to compete with “robust” Spanish offerings on the Dish Network, Ludke said.
After the changes, there will be 24 English channels and four Spanish channels for Limited Basic cable customers.
Similar changes were scheduled to occur in Gilroy Tuesday, but the Federal Communications Commission halted the move.
Charter is planning to replace two Monterey County-based stations in its local basic channel lineup, although Gilroy city officials have asked the company to refrain from doing so.
“We’re going to move forward with our decision to add additional Spanish-language programming,” Ludke said.
Charter had announced plans to pull KION-46 – cable channel 5 – and KCBA-35 – cable channel 8 – from its local basic channel lineup in Gilroy, Morgan Hill and San Martin effective Tuesday.
However, whenever a cable provider plans on changing programming, it must provide 30 day’s notice to stations, Ludke said. The FCC gives the stations the opportunity to file a petition to stop the removal and KION filed such a petition, Ludke said. He said he believes KCBA will do the same. It could take months for the matter to be settled, he added.
To further stall Charter’s efforts, Gilroy Mayor Tom Springer sent a letter to Charter March 20 stating the city council unanimously opposed eliminating KCBA and KION.
Those stations are closer geographically than their equivalents in the San Francisco Bay Area and tend to cover local weather and traffic conditions better than their northern counterparts, Springer said. And, many Gilroy residents commute to Salinas or the Monterey area daily, he noted.
Meanwhile, multiple local sources of information are also important to security and awareness in the post-9-11 world, he wrote.
“We commend Charter for adding the additional Spanish-language stations to your cable system lineup to serve an important segment of our market,” Springer wrote. “In doing so, we believe (the new Spanish-language) stations can easily coexist with the continued carrying of KCBA and KION … KCBA and KION provide more value to the citizens and Charter subscribers than do some of the alternatives carried on your basic and extended basic channel lineup … ”
Springer said he’s also heard from San Francisco 49ers football fans concerned the new channel plan could hamper their ability to watch the team and Gilroy-raised quarterback Jeff Garcia. The two Monterey/Salinas channels are apparently backup avenues to air the team’s games if they are blacked out on North Bay channels.
Ludke said he could not recall many times the 49ers have not sold out in the past few seasons.
Jon Jeisel of South Valley Newspapers’ Gilroy bureau contributed to this story.
