THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 16, 1997 TAG: 9702160055
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 55 lines
The push is on to make Chesapeake just like other Hampton Roads cities - at least on television.
Cox Communications, which has been providing service to Chesapeake cable watchers since swapping some territory Jan. 1 with Tele-Communications of Virginia Inc., has begun to upgrade the city's system. Viewers may not have noticed much of a change - Fox's all-news cable station was replaced by MSNBC - but more stations are planned, including a second local government access channel.
Chesapeake households now can flip through about 60 channels, while Cox subscribers in Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Portsmouth can tune in to about 80.
Cox swapped territories with TCI in an effort to keep their service areas contiguous. With Chesapeake in the mix, Cox now serves about 380,000 homes in Hampton Roads and about 3.2 million across the country.
Cox already provides service to York and James City counties, and plans to acquire Hampton, Poquoson and Williamsburg by the end of the month.
Officials say they will spend millions to build up technology in Chesapeake with the goal to have the channels there become consistent with the other area systems'.
``Some channels will move around,'' said Franklin R. Bowers, vice president and general manager of Cox. ``But people don't watch channels; they watch programs.''
For example, all local government programming will move to channels 46, 47 and 48 - two for City Council meetings and other civic events, and one for School Board and educational programs. That will bump Chesapeake's current council channel up from channel 23 and its School Board channel down from 67.
For those who enjoy old World Series games and furry critters, the Classic Sports and Animal Planet channels were added at the end of December by TCI and will be maintained by Cox, Bowers said.
Local News on Cable, an all-news cable channel produced by The Virginian-Pilot, WVEC-Channel 13 and Cox, will air for the first time on Feb. 24 in most of South Hampton Roads. Chesapeake will receive the station March 1 on channel 8.
``There just isn't enough channel capacity now in Chesapeake,'' said Phil Ahlschlager, vice president of operations for Cox. ``There will be some major upgrading. . . . We're spending millions.''
Cox plans eventually to provide such services as Internet access over high-speed cable modems, hundreds of times faster than current telephone modems, and digital compression technology so several times more TV channels can be added.
Bowers said VH-1 and Comedy Central will not always have to share a station.
``And we'll get the Disney Channel included in the basic service eventually, maybe by the end of the year,'' he said. ``TV is very personal to people; we hope we do a good job for them.''
KEYWORDS: CABLE TV