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.

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.