City Seeks to Scramble Access to Spice Shows : Oxnard: Adult-oriented cable channel can inadvertently be heard by about 5,000 who don’t pay for it. City, civic leaders discuss the issue.

Oxnard officials are attempting to block the audio portion of a soft-core pornography channel available to thousands of cable subscribers in Oxnard, Port Hueneme and surrounding areas even though they don’t pay for it.

The Spice channel premiered at the start of the year and is available only on a pay-per-view basis. But for about 5,000 Jones Intercable subscribers, those who don’t have cable converter boxes, the audio portion of the adult-oriented telecast bleeds into their television sets even though the picture is scrambled.

Oxnard resident Frank Allen said he stumbled onto some of Spice’s “adult conversation” a few months ago while flipping through the channels.

“It’s very detailed, very explicit,” said Allen, whose complaint prompted city officials to ask Jones to block the audio signal for those who don’t order it. “I was appalled that this material would be made available to our youth.”

Jeff Jones, general manager of the Oxnard-based cable company, confirmed Monday that the audio feed is inadvertently available to about 5,000 of the company’s estimated 37,000 subscribers. Jones said the cable company has received only one complaint, and that came secondhand through the city.

But while the company lacks the ability to block the audio feed systemwide, Jones said it will gladly silence the signal for any customer who doesn’t want it.

“We will run out immediately the same day,” Jones said. “If someone calls and has a problem with any one of our products, we respond immediately.”

On Monday, government officials and civic leaders met to discuss the issue. The press was barred from the meeting, and some in attendance were reluctant to discuss the matter afterward.

“We’re going to meet with Jones to attempt to get them to black this out,” Supervisor John K. Flynn said. He declined further comment.

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Dennis Scala, the city government’s liaison with Jones Intercable, said the company and city officials have been trying to keep the issue quiet.

“We don’t want to bring too much attention to it,” said Scala, who also attended Monday’s meeting. “The more people you inform about this, the more the problem is spread.”

But in a letter to Jones Intercable, Scala expressed the depth of the city’s concern over the inadvertent audio signal.

“We are requesting that you review your current scrambling methods for this, and other ‘Adult’ channels, to scramble or otherwise block out the audio signal of the channel,” Scala wrote. “More importantly, we feel that subscribers should be protected from these signals without any specific action on their part.”

In a letter in response, Jeff Jones detailed the efforts the company has taken to ensure that youngsters don’t have access to adult programming.

Customers with cable converter boxes do not pick up the audio feed to Spice or any other pay-per-view program unless they pay for it, Jones said.

In addition, personal identification numbers are made available to all customers to prevent curious youngsters from ordering the service. And the cable boxes are equipped with a system that allows parents to block out individual channels.

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And, as a last resort, those without cable converters can have a filter placed on their cable line that permanently blocks the audio feed.

”. . . We took extra security steps in this system so that concerned parents can make sure that this programming is only received by those who truly choose to receive it,” Jones wrote.

Still, city officials and others say they believe that many parents are unaware that the audio for the Spice channel seeps into their homes.

Mayor Manuel Lopez said Jones should find a way to scramble the audio signal.

“Young kids can just turn on the TV and listen to that,” said Lopez, who was supplied a tape recording of the adult conservation by those who want to block it. “I don’t think that’s right.”

In the meantime, Jones has blocked out the Spice channel from Frank Allen’s north Oxnard home.