Council Votes to Appeal Cable Company’s Planned 453% Fee Hike

Faced with a city-ordered rollback of basic cable television rates, Century Communications Corp. officials have told the city they now intend to raise premium rates by up to 453%.

Incensed city officials, unable under federal law to regulate the rates subscribers pay for premium channels such as HBO and Showtime, contend that the company is simply trying to sidestep the $1.4-million cost of the basic-cable rate cut.

In a unanimous closed-door vote Monday, the City Council agreed to appeal the planned rate increase to the Federal Communications Commission.

“These rate increases are obscene,” Mayor Jim Friedman said after the vote, reading from a prepared statement on behalf of the City Council.

“Century Communications has offered no explanation as to the reason for the increases,” leading the council to conclude the company “seeks to evade the financial effect of the council’s recent rate order,” he said.

But Bill Rosendahl, Century’s senior vice president for cable operations, denied that the company is sidestepping the basic rate cut.

“The law . . . gives Century Communications the right to set reasonable rates for their service in a nonregulated area,” Rosendahl said. “If there’s any disagreement, the FCC can obviously involve themselves.”

Whatever the city may think, premium service “has been underpriced for a long time,” he said.

Although some customers on an early July billing cycle have been charged the old basic rates, the rate cut and refund will be reflected in bills now being printed that should arrive in mailboxes Wednesday.

Century has told the City Council that it will comply with the monthly basic rate rollback from $31.50 to $25.07. The company also has agreed to include a monthly refund of $7.86 through June 1999--a credit representing a retroactive basic rate rollback for the previous 13 1/2 months.

Although federal law prevents the city from regulating rates charged for premium channels, the city can appeal Century’s planned premium-service rate hike providing at least two of the 15,800 Century subscribers in Ventura complain.

During Monday’s closed session vote, the council directed City Atty. Bob Boehm to file an appeal once those two complaints are received.

The council further told Boehm to “take whatever other action that is necessary to cause the FCC to regulate the rates charged by Century Communications for programming services subject to the most recent rate increase.”

“This is absolutely ludicrous,” Councilman Jack Tingstrom said.

City officials say that under Century’s planned premium channel rate increases, the Disney channel will cost $7.29 per month instead of the current $1.95--a 274% increase.

The company’s “a la carte” premium channel service will run subscribers $2.49 per month instead of 45 cents--a 453% increase.

Two premium channel packages--the Cable Select 6A and 6B--will increase from $2.62 per month to $9.79. Century’s “Cable Select 12” service will increase from $4.09 per month to $15.29.

The dispute between the city, Century and subscribers is nothing new.

For years, Century subscribers have been complaining that Century is an unresponsive corporate giant operating with no competition that offers poor service and bloated rates, charges that the company has repeatedly denied.

Beginning last fall, as the city began considering whether to renew Century’s 15-year franchise to provide cable television in the city, Century ignored three letters from the city to file FCC forms justifying its rates--the highest paid anywhere in Ventura County.

Instead, the company announced in March that it would raise rates by 6%, and soon after filed a petition challenging the city’s rate-setting authority before the FCC.

It was those moves that prompted the council to scale back Century’s rates three weeks later on April 27, after an analysis by city-hired consultants concluded that for months Century had been significantly overcharging its subscribers.

The council, in turn, used its congressionally granted power to order that Century’s monthly rate for basic cable service be reduced.

Although Century immediately petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to temporarily delay the rollback, the federal agency has taken no action on the company’s request.