Adelphia to Resume Selling Sex Channels

After two years of abstinence, Southern California’s largest cable provider, Adelphia Communications Corp., will again air such sexual fare as Playboy TV and the Spice networks.

The company confirmed Tuesday that it will launch so-called adult programming on its systems nationwide starting next year. Although sex channels are among the most lucrative in cable, Adelphia’s fallen founder, John Rigas, refused to carry them because he said he considered their contents immoral and detrimental to family values.

One year after it purchased Century Communications in 1999, Adelphia began dropping the popular Spice channel from its newly acquired systems, which serves 1.2 million customers in Southern California.

Rigas has since relinquished control of Adelphia amid an accounting scandal that forced the Coudersport, Pa.-based company to file for bankruptcy protection. Rigas and several other Adelphia top executives were indicted this summer on charges of bank and mail fraud.

In an internal memo to Adelphia employees and managers last week, obtained by The Times, Adelphia Chairman Erland Kailbourne said the policy reversal was motivated by consumer demand and the financial benefits of adult programming.

Some cable industry executives estimate that Adelphia, the nation’s fifth-largest cable company, has given up more than $25 million a year in revenues by refusing to carry the channels. Revenues from adult programming have exploded in recent years, approaching $1 billion last year, up fourfold since 1998, according to industry estimates.

Kailbourne said only digital set-top boxes will be needed to order Adelphia’s adult programming. In this way, parents can block adult-themed stations from the view of their children.

Pastor John Lindberg of the Eagle Rock Covenant Church said the change of heart means “money talks, and that’s sad.”

“I do a good deal of counseling,” he said, “and I see the havoc that pornography on television and the Internet wreaks in some households.”

Adelphia will begin notifying customers of the programming changes before year’s end. Company officials say the local systems will decide when they roll out the new channels, which will include Playboy, Spice 1 and 2 and the Hot Network. All are owned by Playboy Enterprises Inc., the dominant provider of adult programming.

Adelphia was the lone holdout among pay television companies in rejecting soft-core programming such as Playboy and Spice. Several cable operators continue to balk at carrying harder-core channels such as Spice 2 and the Hot Network.

Playboy estimates that up to 10% of the nation’s 80 million cable and satellite households order some form of adult programming every month.

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Times staff writer Louis Sahagun contributed to this report.