Cable board can't decide on rebate request

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By JEFF KORBELIK / Lincoln Journal Star

The Cable Advisory Board agreed Thursday that Time Warner Cable should compensate its digital TV subscribers for problems relating to Navigator, the cable company’s new program guide.

But members couldn’t come up with how much.

The board approved three recommendations for its final report to the City Council, but tabled discussion on rebates until its May 17 meeting.

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(LJS file)

(LJS file)

The city can request subscriber compensation, but doesn’t have the authority to regulate Time Warner’s rates or to force the cable company to provide rebates to its customers.

Advisory members agreed rebates should cover the time period from when Navigator was first installed to the end of April.

At issue was whether or not to request compensation on total monthly cable television bills and by what percentage.

The board’s two subcommittees recommended 15 percent and 50 percent per month rebates, respectively.

“Fifteen percent doesn’t show the outrage,” said board member Herb Friedman, who argued for a higher rebate. “You need to make a statement to these people.”

Board member Stuart Long agreed.

“We sit here as representatives to those people who sent us e-mails and all of those who did not,” Long said.

Ann Shrewsbury, Time Warner’s Nebraska division director of public affairs, reminded board members that the cable company has compensated subscribers, doing so on a case-by-case basis.

“It’s something we’ve struggled with, too,” she said. “For someone who had to reboot every day, 10 bucks per month is not enough. But for the customer who is upset with the (DVR’s missing) jump back feature … what do you do?”

The board’s final report to the City Council is part of the city’s performance evaluation, which came in response to a resolution introduced in early March by council member Jonathan Cook after fielding customer complaints.

Time Warner, the nation’s second-largest cable company, has been under fire locally since it dropped the contracted Passport channel guide last fall in favor of company-created Navigator.

The cable company changed the guide to make it compatible with other software programs coming down the line.

The change affects 46,000 digital cable in Southeast Nebraska, including 33,200 in Lincoln. Time Warner has 110,000 cable TV subscribers in its coverage area, with 75,000 in Lincoln.

A digital subscriber pays $68.70 per month. The service includes basic cable, the digital product tier, the sports tier, Navigator and one converter box. DVR (digital video recorder) service is an additional $5.95 per month.

Subscribers complained that the new guide was inferior to the old one and that they had difficulties with their digital or DVR boxes after the guides were loaded.

As part of its final report, the board approved the following recommendations, which members agreed still may be tweaked. They included:

* Asking Time Warner to redesign it customer service home page on its Web site with a clear explanation of the complaint process.

* Having the cable company report to the city the number of telephone, e-mail and mailed complaints about cable television service responses. These statistical reports should be made every three months instead of the six required by the city’s franchise agreement with the cable company.

* Asking Time Warner to establish a testing policy, including appropriate and timely notification, indication of potential problems and difficulties, methods for collecting user opinions and findings and compensations of users for all major software releases.

The board is scheduled to meet again at 4 p.m. Thursday at the City-County Building.

Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.