2/23/1993 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Foody advised that in the latter -part of 1992, Congress passed cable legislation which encouraged a basic low-cost, entry level type service. TCI had foreseen this requirement and made these changes two years ago; hence, their subscribers will not see the channel dislocation that many other systems are going through right now. TCI is changing the price of the entry level service to $10.00 beginning March 1. The net reduction to people being billed for Broadcast Basic only is $4.35, excluding taxes and fees. There is no change for people having the cable plus package. Chairman Bird asked Mr. Foody to elaborate on how the channels are selected for the basic service, and Mr. Foody explained that 15-20 years ago, before all these other programming services were available, cable companies could bring in only distant signals and Vero Beach is unusual in the sense that it sits between the West Palm Beach market and the Orlando market. In addition, over the last 12 years there has been many regulations as to what a system has to carry as far as off -air broadcasters. TCI 's Broadcast Basic lineup has evolved from the channels their subscribers are used to seeing. The duplication of ABC and NBC stations was not irritating 6 or 7 years ago when cable companies did not have to black them out, but now it has become more irritating due to regulations that those signals had to be blacked out because certain stations had certain rights to different programming superior "over other stations. That created holes in the programming, but there is a possibility of eliminating some of this duplication as future regulation takes shape. Right now, they feel it would be foolish to do anything to the lineup because it isn't known what future regulations will bring about. An outside research firm has done random surveys of their subscribers regarding programming, and they have a 90 -percent plus statistical confidence level. Many questions were asked in these surveys, in addition to those of programming preference, regarding the quality of service and the quality of service when visiting.their office. For the most part, TCI carries the lion's share of what is up on the satellites right now. There is not too much up there of value that they do not carry. Mr. Foody noted that they are looking at this and are in touch with the subscribers as to what will be carried in the future. Ren Vickers of Falcon Cable advised that he is scheduled to make a presentation at next week's BCC meeting. Jim Granse, 36 Pine Arbor Lane, remembered when United Artists became TCI, but couldn't remember -what it was named before United Artists. 25 BOOK 88 PA,c 902 FEB 23 1.3