Century Cable to Air King Trial : Television: The company will broadcast pool coverage as well as a weekly panel discussion on the beating trial.
Court TV still isn’t available in most of Los Angeles, but Century Southwest Cable subscribers in West Los Angeles and Santa Monica will be able to watch live coverage of the Rodney King beating trial when it opens this week in Simi Valley.
Bill Rosendahl, vice president of operations for the 70,000-subscriber cable system, said that Century has paid to obtain the pool feed on its own and will show it over Channel 41 for most of its subscribers and on Channel 60 for those who reside in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood.
Century has offered the live feed to other cable operators, Rosendahl said, but had received no response as of Friday.
At the end of each week during the trial (which is expected to last five to six weeks), Century will also stage a panel discussion, featuring attorneys and jurists who will review the previous week’s testimony, he said. The panel discussion will be rerun several times during each week, he added.
The only other cable systems in the Los Angeles area that will be showing the trial for certain are those that carry the Court TV channel, which plans to provide gavel-to-gavel coverage of the proceedings, in which four Los Angeles Police Dept. members are accused of assault with a deadly weapon and excessive force in connection with the videotaped beating of King last March. The systems are located in South Pasadena, Canyon Country and Rancho Cucamonga.
Century’s cost for obtaining the feed probably will run between $1,000 and $1,500, according to a pool spokeswoman.
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