IRVINE : Shorter Cable TV Pact With City Urged

A proposed renewal agreement between the city and its cable television company will go before the City Council on Tuesday with recommendations that the term be limited to 10 years.

The Finance Commission voted unanimously Monday after a four-hour public hearing to recommend that the council reject Community Cablevision’s request to renew its service contract for 25 years. Several residents complained that the cable company provides poor service and bad picture quality.

Community Cablevision’s 15-year contract with the city expires in August.

The commission’s recommendation supports an earlier recommendation from city officials for a shorter contract.

During Monday’s hearing, about eight residents said Community Cablevision has been providing poor service for the past several years.

“If I had an antenna on my TV, I would probably get a better picture,” said Donna Bartyczak, 31, a six-year Woodbridge resident.

Not only is the picture quality bad, she said, but the service occasionally drops out for an evening. Her service has been interrupted twice so far this year, Bartyczak said.

Other residents also complained of fuzzy pictures and multiple images, especially on the scrambled movie channels.

The proposed cable TV contract that will go before the City Council includes provisions for Community Cablevision to provide an estimated $12 million in upgraded equipment and service. Chief among the proposed improvements is a newer way of scrambling signals.

The outdated method used by Community Cablevision is the chief reason for the poor quality, said Jonathan Kramer, president of Communications Support Corp. of El Toro, who analyzed the city’s cable service.

The most expensive proposed improvement is to replace the thick metal cable with a thinner fiber optic cable that uses light to transmit the signal. The fiber optic system should improve picture quality and reduce service interruptions, said J. Donald S. McNutt, Community Cablevision president.

The fiber optic cable would increase the city’s channel capacity to 60. Community Cablevision now offers up to 38 channels.

The proposed contract also requires Community Cablevision to dedicate two channels for the city’s use and eight to be shared by the Irvine Unified School District, UC Irvine and Irvine Valley College. The company would also have to donate $500,000 to the Irvine Unified School District and $150,000 to the city to improve public access and interactive television services.

The proposed renewal agreement will not require the cable company to replace the decoder boxes needed by subscribers who get more than the basic channels. Residents have complained that the decoder box prevents taping one show while watching another and of using advanced “picture within a picture” televisions without renting a second cable decoder box.

City officials said they didn’t know how the cost of the improvements would affect customer rates.

McNutt said the company’s increased costs “will be factored into rates charged over time.” He would not give estimates on the possible rate increases.