Editor: David Tanny
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If I Programmed Cox Cable 11-29-03!With all this talk about Cox vs. ESPN vs. the viewers (yes, this is a three-way battle) over the rising costs of carrying ESPN, which wants a 20 percent raise passed on to its viewers each year, Cox Cable, which is doing nothing for the viewers by asking them to accept smaller rises in the costs of their bills, and the viewers, which want both of them to get their costs back down to a more reasonable rate, like a quarter.Over the past few years, Cox has fumbled miserably, ignoring watching trends while adding channels few people care to watch such as these: 1982: dropped KABC 7 and KHJ 9 to add Playboy Channel and PPV Padres telecasts, neither of which did many people any good, except to get complaints from parents about undesired leaking porn sounds on cable 22, and an angry customer base over the dropping of two of the LA channels they watch. Cox would eventually drop KCBS, KTTV, KNBC, and KCOP, depriving viewers of their fix for network programming the local affilliates choose to pre-empt with "innovative" fare such as "She's The Sheriff", "Morton Downey Jr." and "Sally Jesse Raphael." Pity the fools who ran the TV stations in the 80's. Lakers fans couldn't watch their team on KHJ, though two local stations carried them for a short while in the 80's. KUSI carried some of Elvira's Movie Macabre seen on KHJ for a few years. 1989: Cox dropped FNN for CNBC, irating many fans of serious business news when Cox replaced it with an amateurish-produced lineup of "business" shows on CNBC designed for a wider audience. I know. I was once a telemarketer at Cox Cable and a tenth of those I called to solicit cable subscriptions were the ones who dropped Cox because of them dropping FNN and KHJ. Idiots at Cox! 1987: Cox adds Prime Ticket (which showed home Lakers games, though). The only beef? They placed it on the same channel as Nick at Nite, depriving me of my fix of 50's and 60's classic TV sitcoms. I like to watch the Lakers, but when that's done, I'm done with sports, and off I go to watch the TV comedies. I never cared to watch the other sports stuff. Another stupid Cox mistake. Prime Ticket later was chaged to Fox Sports West when News Corp. bought it. 1981: Night Flight on USA takes off, but guess what? Cox doesn't carry it except for the last hour of the four-hour show from 11-mid on cable 2. Aside of MTV, this was one of my favorite cable viewing pastimes during the decade. 1984: Cox adds Lifetime, a cable channel for women. Not ready for a full-time channel that niche and too far ahead of its time, don't you think? 1982: Cox is required to add KSCI 48 out of Poway, and carried it for four years. This was a translator for KSCI 18 out of San Bernadino-Los Angeles. Why was this a must-carry if the station originated out of that area? Never made any sense to me. 1982: Cox adds WTBS to its lineup at long last. Too bad it came at the expense of KABC on channel 7, depriving viewers of a daily fix of several network shows not carried on channel 10. Those were some of the missteps Cox took back then. Now, here's what else Cox is missing out on 20 years later, still making the same mistakes! Mistake #1: Not carrying all of the local TV stations in the San Diego area. What happened to Must-Carry? Cox carries just 11 of the local TV stations originating from this area, three of which are in Spanish. Cox seems to be focusing more on channels from out of space that don't serve the local interest than to foster the growth of local TV stations. The last channel they fostered was KBNT 19 (now on channel 17) when it was launched in 1989, a new Univision affilliate. There have been more local stations popping up since then. They carry UCSD 35 only part time; this should be full-time. There's also a channel 43 out of Poway. Why can't they carry these channels full time? You thought Cox cared about serving the local interest, as long as they have an interest in the channels in the first place...financially, that is. Spanish television in San Diego has exploded since KBNT and XHAS have signed on. There's a new Azteca America affilliate on channel 41, a Spanish independent on channel 29 that can be picked up in most of lower San Diego county, another Spanish independent on channel 61, and a half dozen Mexican stations broadcasting programming out of Mexico City to Tijuana, but are not carried locally. With so many Spanish language TV stations in San Diego, perhaps it's time for a cable company to launch an All-Spanish Basic Cable company serving the Spanish language community, which makes up a whole third of the population of San Diego county. Cox isn't doing them any good by carrying only three Spanish-language stations, and if they want more, they have to subscribe to the expensive digital tier to get them. Here's how I would program a cable company I would call "El Cable Ultra."
2: KBNT 17 Univision (San Diego)
The English-language tier will have this lineup:
0, 1, 98, 99, 19, 20: same as above, but in English
Satellite Programming Networks:
31: ABC Family
Digital Channels on Box numbered beginning with channel 126 to avoid confusion with the analog channels through 125 (the frequency of channel 69) Ala carte channels, Pay TV, PPV, local and Los Angeles radio stations, plus Internet radio stations from all over the US, numbering well into the 1000's. Pick and pay for the channels you want to use.
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