Breakdown in Cable Talks a Ratings Loser in Ventura

Steve Hartmann marched into Avenue TV Cable’s Ventura office this week, dropped off his decoder box and canceled his subscription for basic cable service.

And with that act, Hartmann said, he reclaimed his “consumer dignity.”

Hartmann is among hundreds of cable television subscribers in west Ventura who are angered over losing channels that carry such highly rated programs as “The Simpsons,” “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Jeopardy,” as well as some Los Angeles-based newscasts.

Nearly a month after the deadline for reaching fee arrangements passed, Avenue TV Cable has made no headway in its negotiations with KCBS (Channel 2), KABC (Channel 7) and KTTV (Channel 11), a company official said. As a result, popular programming from the broadcast stations will very likely not return to Avenue’s lineup for at least six months, said Pam Drake, the cable company’s marketing director.

Meanwhile, many Avenue customers say they are frustrated that they can’t see their favorite shows while being charged the same rates for programming that has been substantially reduced. Residents have little recourse because Avenue is the sole cable operator for 10,000 viewers in the western end of the city, Hartmann said.

“As a monopoly, Avenue Cable knows subscribers have nowhere else to go for the service it presently offers in west Ventura,” Hartmann said.

Under terms of a cable law passed by Congress last year, broadcast TV stations can charge cable companies for the right to carry their programs.

Avenue’s Drake said the company has made repeated attempts to reach an agreement with the three Los Angeles stations. But KTTV and KABC each want Avenue to add another cable channel owned by their network in exchange for carrying their signals, a requirement Avenue finds unacceptable.

KCBS wants to charge a minimum per-household monthly fee to carry its programs. The company asked for a 10-cent-per-household fee for the first year, rising to 20 cents next year and 30 cents in the third year, Station Manager Steve Gigliotti said.

Avenue has rejected all offers, Drake said, because they will eventually result in higher costs passed on to the consumer.

“It may not look like a whole lot of money, but eventually the increase in customers’ bills would be significant,” Drake said.

But representatives of the broadcast companies said Avenue is taking a hardball stance in negotiations at the expense of its customers. The cable company refused to accept KCBS’s offer of one additional year free while negotiations continued, Gigliotti said. And it turned down Fox Broadcasting’s offer of a six-month extension at no charge, Fox executive Larry Jones said.

“Avenue’s concern is strictly economic,” Gigliotti said. “They are not evaluating this on what is important to their viewers.”

At least 42 subscribers have canceled their service because of the continuing dispute, Avenue’s Drake said. Many others have requested converters--supplied by Avenue free of charge--that allow them to quickly switch to antenna reception so they can still receive the Los Angeles stations, she said.

That is not an option for about half of Avenue’s customers, who do not get good broadcast reception because of mountain interference, she said. Most CBS and ABC network programming is available, however, on Avenue’s basic service through affiliates in Santa Maria and Santa Barbara, Drake said.

None of the programming supplied by the Fox Network is available, she said.

On Nov. 1, Avenue will add three cable channels to basic service to make up for the loss of the broadcast channels, Drake said. Basic service customers will receive TNT, TBS and the Family Channel at no extra charge, she said.

Also, subscribers with expanded service will receive the Learning Channel, the Cartoon Network and the Travel Channel by Nov. 15, Drake said. But customers won’t receive rebates for the 25 days they received three fewer channels, she said.

“We do not charge on a per-channel basis,” Drake said. “And we did not reduce our costs by not signing contracts with the networks.”

Ventura City Hall has been besieged by calls from angry subscribers to Avenue TV Cable ever since it dropped the broadcast stations Oct. 7, city information officer Carol Green said. Many are unsure with whom they should be angry, she said.

“They want to know whose fault is it,” she said. “The federal government for passing the new cable law, the broadcasters for charging a fee, the cable company for dropping the programming, or the city for granting Avenue the cable franchise.”

And they get a different story depending on who they call, Green said.

“But the bottom line is that they can’t have an impact on what is happening. And that adds to the frustration.”

But subscribers such as Hartmann believe they can make a difference--by canceling their service. Hartmann, who is marketing coordinator for the city of Ventura, said he felt helpless until he took action.

“I hated to do it,” he said. But “I regained by consumer dignity by returning my decoder box and canceling my Avenue Cable subscription until full service is returned.”