$395 DECODER NOW REQUIRED : CNN NETWORKS JOIN THE SCRAMBLERS

The free ride ended Tuesday for home satellite dish owners who have been tuning in to Cable News Network and CNN Headline News. The networks started scrambling their satellite TV signals at midnight.

The nation’s estimated 1.7 million home dish owners will now have to buy a special decoder for $395 and pay $25 a year to receive the CNN services, said officials at the Atlanta-based network.

And Cuban President Fidel Castro, an avid news and sports fan who has long picked up CNN on his satellite dish, was left in the dark as the CNN networks become the nation’s fifth and sixth cable program services to scramble, they said.

CNN owner Ted Turner earlier this year promised to send a decoder to Havana, but the State Department warned that the trade embargo with Cuba prevents such a gift.

“We would never do anything to endanger U.S. policy,” a CNN spokeswoman said.

At a news conference to mark the advent of scrambling, CNN announced a venture with Home Box Office, which started encrypting its HBO and Cinemax movie channels Jan. 15. Customers calling HBO to subscribe can order CNN at the same time.

A similar deal is expected to be reached with Showtime and the Movie Channel, which began scrambling May 27.

CNN also announced that a Chicago firm, Anixter Communications, would offer dish owners a year of CNN free if they purchase their decoders through Anixter by calling a toll-free number by Friday.

About 18,000 Americans own decoders and virtually all either have subscribed or are expected to subscribe to CNN, a spokesman said.

Earlier this month, HBO and Showtime announced special discount rates for home dish owners who subscribe for a full year. An HBO spokesman, contacted in New York, said many more discount packages and “one-stop shopping” arrangements will likely be offered as more and more networks scramble.

Scrambling has sparked protests from many home dish owners, who complain they’ll be charged too much to see the programs they used to get free. Most don’t mind paying, but they point out that they, unlike cable-TV subscribers, have bought the necessary hardware. They fear that all decoders won’t be able to unscramble all the networks.

On April 27, a video marauder calling himself “Captain Midnight” briefly interrupted an HBO movie to transmit his own signal protesting scrambling and HBO’s $12.95 monthly fee.

The scrambling will not affect viewers who receive CNN over their local cable TV systems.