Family Friendly Option Rolls Out
By Kathryn Balint, The San Diego Union-Tribune
Jan. 12–Cox Communications will sell a “family friendly” cable TV tier in San Diego County and three other U.S. markets by the end of March, part of the cable industry’s strategy to satisfy critics of violent, profane and sexual content on television.
Cox said yesterday that it will sell the new programming tier — which will cost an additional $16 over basic cable — in San Diego; Tulsa, Okla; Oklahoma City; and Fairfax, Va.
The 17 channels in the tier include PBS Kids Sprout, Boomerang, FitTV, Home & Garden TV, DIY Network, Discovery’s Science Channel and Nickelodeon. The $32-a-month total cost includes the family tier, the limited basic lineup and a set-top converter box. The limited basic lineup has 21 channels, including the Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC local affiliates.
“We’re basically just giving our customers another option,” said Ceanne Guerra, a spokeswoman for Cox’s San Diego division.
Cox is the largest cable operator in San Diego County with about 500,000 customers.
The company joins Time Warner Cable and Comcast in creating family tiers.
The tiers have not placated parents’ groups and others who prefer that the cable systems allow the customer to pick which channels to buy.
Time Warner Cable, the second-largest cable company in the county with about 200,000 subscribers, plans to roll out its family tier nationwide over the next three months. The programming package will include 15 digital channels available to subscribers of Time Warner’s basic tier. The monthly fee for the basic and family tiers is $25, not including the rental of a set-top box.
The introduction of family tiers comes less than two months after Kevin Martin, Federal Communications Commission chairman, blamed the cable industry for not doing enough to protect children from inappropriate content. He suggested a lineup of family channels or a la carte offerings from which customers could choose.
“I do believe that something needs to be done,” Martin said then, adding that if cable operators fail to act, “basic indecency and profanity restrictions may be a viable alternative.”
Derek Baine, a senior analyst for Kagan Research in Monterey, said cable TV companies are hoping family tiers put an end to talk of letting customers pick their own channels.
Cable companies say a la carte offerings would cost too much to provide.
“Nobody wants the a la carte issue to come up again,” Baine said. “It’s a really bad business model for the programmers and distributors. So, in one sense, the cable companies are tossing an olive branch out to Kevin Martin.”
Baine said Time Warner and Comcast, which is the nation’s largest cable operator, have been particularly eager to satisfy the FCC. The two companies are trying to close a deal to acquire Adelphia Communications for $12.7 billion in cash and 16 percent of Time Warner’s common stock over the next three months.
Comcast, which does not operate in San Diego County, has its own family tier of programming.
The family offerings so far have been met with disappointment and criticism.
“If there is a demand for family tiers, this is a very wobbly attempt,” said Matthew Felling, media director for the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., a research and educational organization that studies the news and entertainment media.
Felling noted that Chicago-based WGN, which is among Cox’s basic channels that will come with the family tier, carries “Sex and the City,” a TV show about the sex lives of four women in New York City.
“I don’t understand the curious TV calculus that Cox is using that allows ‘Sex in the City’ and ‘Becker’ on the family tier but blocks ‘Powerpuff Girls’ and ‘Scooby-Doo,’ ” Felling said.
“Becker,” a show about a gruff physician, runs in syndication on WGN, while “The Powerpuff Girls” and “Scooby-Doo” are on the Cartoon Network, which is not part of Cox’s family tier.
The Parents Television Council, which describes itself as a grass-roots organization founded to keep sex, violence and profanity off television, scoffs at the family tiers and is continuing to push for a la carte offerings.
“Families ought to be free to decide for themselves what constitutes a family tier,” said Dan Isett, the council’s director of corporate and government affairs. “In no other industry that I can think of are consumers forced to buy a great deal of things they don’t want in order to get things that they do want.”
One criticism of the family tiers is their lack of sports and news programming. “I can’t see a demand for a cable tier with no sports programming nor any of the big three cable news networks,” Felling said.
Isett said the family tiers are designed to fail because of their lack of popular, yet family friendly, programming.
Marc Farrar, vice president of public affairs for Time Warner Cable’s San Diego division, said customers have the ability to program their set-top boxes to block out specific channels that they deem inappropriate.
Cox’s Guerra said that in addition to offering parental controls, Cox has a Web site (www.cox.com/takecharge) to help parents find family friendly programming.
“We believe that each household still has to make their own choice on what is appropriate programming for their household,” she said. “We still encourage families to use parental controls and to visit our Take Charge Web site.”
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