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Cable board recommends rebate for digital subscribers

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By JEFF KORBELIK / Lincoln Journal Star

Friday, May 18, 2007 - 12:35:34 am CDT

The Cable TV Advisory Board will recommend Time Warner Cable rebate digital television subscribers $24 a month for problems relating to its new program guide.

Whether it happens or not remains the big, unanswered question.

The city can request compensation but doesn’t have the authority to force Time Warner to provide rebates to its customers.

Story Photo
(LJS file)

The advisory board voted 9-1 Thursday to include the compensation recommendation in its final report to the City Council as part of the city’s performance evaluation of the cable company.

The board also approved three other recommendations for its report.

The rebate would cover the time from when the program guide Navigator was installed in each customer’s converter box through April 30.

Member Jerrod Jeager cast the lone dissenting vote. He supported full compensation to digital subscribers.

“Time Warner is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt,” Jeager said in prepared statement.

After the meeting, the cable company declined to say whether or not it will issue a blanket rebate to its digital customers.

“We’re going to wait and see what the City Council thinks,” said Ann Shrewsbury, public affairs director for Time Warner’s Nebraska division.

She noted the cable company has compensated digital subscribers on a case-by-case basis and will continue to do so.

“People who have wanted compensation have called or will call, she said. “This has been highly publicized.”

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

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.

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

The change affects 46,000 digital cable subscribers 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. Digital video recorder service is an additional $5.95 per month.

The $24 rebate is 35 percent of $68.70.

As part of its report to the council, the board approved the following recommendations:

n Give digital subscribers a choice between Passport and Navigator if technically feasible.

n Have the city and Time Warner adopt a subscriber bill of rights.

n Ask the council to exercise its subpoena power if more information is needed about Navigator.

Board member Herb Friedman submitted the last recommendation in response to Time Warner withholding information requested by the board about the number of customer complaints and compensated subscribers.

“If the city wants real answers, it would have to put some people under oath,” Friedman said.

The board will review a draft of its final report at its next meeting, scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday at the City-County Building.

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


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Tony Johnson wrote on May 18, 2007 8:07 am:
" “People who have wanted compensation have called or will call, she said. “This has been highly publicized.” This is outright false. I had more than 10 calls into customer service on issues with the new Navigator, which affected my DVR and my premium channels, not to mention the actual hard drive. I went through four machines in three months, and not ONCE was I offered a rebate or discount. Just a sorry and "we'll send a tech out to replace your machine." Because of this, I have lost hundreds of hours of recorded programming from my multiple DVRS without so much as an apology. "

 jk wrote on May 18, 2007 8:40 am:
" Time Warner should rebate all digital subscribers as recommended by the board...no ifs, ands or buts. Also, Time Warner should keep Navigator and very proactively fix its flaws and then leverage the ability to grow the software into a much better product than Passport. Of course that will take some initiative of which Time Warner has been short on lately. "

 AD wrote on May 18, 2007 8:52 am:
" As the customer/consumer this follows supply and demand. Certainly people can live without cable (and are doing so even when paying for the service) - protest by cancelling service...until this hurts their pocketbook,the customer will continue to be ignored. "

 Guess what they are doing now wrote on May 18, 2007 9:07 am:
" For those without digital services, you once enjoyed ESPN Classic on channel 36...well, not anymore. They are moving that station to the digital tier. Way to go TWC! Not only do you mess up the digital tier, you are messing with the basic cable line up! "

 Enough is enough wrote on May 18, 2007 12:14 pm:
" Time Warner should discontinue it's digital service and DVR's all together. They should go around collecting all the boxes and put Lincoln back in the "stone age of cable" by only providing basic service. What would you do then Lincoln? You wouldn't have anything to gripe about and you politicians would have to find a different way to advance your political agendas. Better yet....let Charter come in from western nebraska. They don't have DVR's or digital phone and their internet is less than half as fast as TWC's. You people are so spoiled "

 Sarah wrote on May 18, 2007 12:53 pm:
" If service is this bad why don't people just cancel that service. There are other options. "

 Enlighten You wrote on May 18, 2007 2:15 pm:
" Hypo - What type of board regulates doctors? I can say they are not electricians. Point being, The cable advisory board, city council and average TWC customers do not know squat about Technology let alone the how to's on a cable network. Just accept the fact that most do not understand and never will. (including TWC) It's ok for people just to say..."I don't know" People should really stop getting so bent out of shape. If you went without tv for 20 minutes during the month, you should be refunded that percentage only. If your DVR did not work correctly, you should be refunded the rental, etc.. No more complaining people. Your cable service is not under warranty. People need to realize that technology only offers providers the ability to segment services. In other words, ISPs can administer, segment and charge for services easier then they ever could. More money to them from you. (They can charge you for every little thing) Just get used to the fact that if you want it, you'll pay for it. "

 J-Dawg wrote on May 18, 2007 2:17 pm:
" It sounds to me like the people complaining really REALLY need to get a life. I have had Time Warner's Digital package for about a month (yes here in Lincoln with the Navigator) and have not experienced a single problem! Do the people complaining really have anything to whine about anymore? Or are they looking for yet another excuse to complain about something...sounds like thats about all we're good at in this city. Also, the Journal-Star needs to quit taking the calls of the elderly people who can't even get their old VCR to stop flashing "12:00" saying that this IS a serious issue. Go outside, read a book, or spend time with other people! "

 Down with TW wrote on May 18, 2007 3:07 pm:
" Corporate greed will win out. Look at the arrogance of the rep quoted here. Go away TW. Do you really think they will go for the rebate thing?! They will just threaten to pack up and go away and then what options besides satelite TV do we have? Ultimately, they will win out. Haven't Lincoln residents figured it out yet? "

 Jay wrote on May 18, 2007 3:58 pm:
" Yeah right, they won't compensate on a case by case basis. I called after finding out everyone else got a rebate because I was told to re-boot the DVR previosly. I called the other day and got the run around, "oh we'll send a tech out on Tuesday to look at it" BS. I received no rebate, but a tech will come out to the house to fix the slow remote response time for me. Time Warner, stop waiting for people to call. Do the right thing and compensate everyone, not just the people who constantly complain. My service sucks as much as everyone elses, I just don't have time to call and complain on a daily basis. "

 I want my rebate wrote on May 18, 2007 10:53 pm:
" I better get a rebate. Time Warner digital service was so bad we eventually sent it back and returned to regular analog. We're still having problems with Internet and digital phone, but nearly as bad as the digital cable service. My guess is they'll find some slick way of not giving a rebate back to non-subscribers. "

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