8
CAMPUS AND AREA
Cable TV service eludes halls
By JULIE COMINE Staff Reporter
For a few dollars a month, most Lawrence residents can watch feature films, sports and MusicTelevision around the clock.
Sunflower Cablevision, the city's sole cable franchise, has strung more than 185 miles of cable to homes and buildings in the city since it started operations in 1972.
But at KU's residence and scholarship halls, high installation costs have made Sunflower Cablevision and students reluctant to bring cable to the campus, said Dave Clark. Sunflower Cablevision general manager
"IT'S MUCH DIFERENT to deal with a private individual than to deal with University housing units," Clark said.
Before Sunflower Cablevision decides to install a cable line to a given neighborhood or to an apartment complex, the company estimates how many people will subscribe to the service, he said.
But the company isn't assured of a definite number of subscribers in KU's 16 residence halls and scholarship halls because the buildings are not equipped for cable hookups to individual rooms, Clark said.
Over the years, several students living in University housing have contacted Sunflower Cablevision about subscribing to cable service in their halls — usually for the main lobbies. Clark said
"IF A HALL COMES to us and is interested in getting cable, we'd be more than glad to do a cost estimate," he said. "Whether or not
they can afford cable is their decision."
J. J. Wilson, director of housing, said residence halls or scholarship halls could contract with Sunflower stores immediately if they wanted cable service.
University Daily Kansan, September 27, 1984
"If they want to pay for the cable out of their hall improvement funds or social funds, we'd have no objections," he said.
But for most hall governments, investing in cable television has not proven cost effective, Clark said.
Only Oliver residence hall and Pearson, Sellards and Stephenson scholarship halls now have cable. They go up to one television in its main lobby.
OLIVER HALL HAS had cable since the mid 1970s, Clark said. Stephenson received his hookup in 1982 and Pearson received service in 1982.
"In the case of Oliver Hall, the cable ran right off 19th Street." Clark said. "It wasn't any more difficult or safer than to book up the average house."
At the three scholarship halls,
she was extended from existing
residence.
Residents at Naismith Hall, which is privately owned, watch cable on 10 television sets in lobbies of the building.
David May, Naismith general manager, said that a planned renovation project could bring cable to individual rooms within three years.
But installing cable at KU's 12 other residence halls and scholarship halls — either in main lobbies, floor lobbies or individual rooms — would require significant construction. Clark said.
FOR EXAMPLE, STRINGING cable to the five residence halls on Daisy Hill would require extending lines from 19th and Iowa streets, or feeding off the lines near Allen Field House that service Jayhawker Towers and Stouffer Place apartments, be said.
"It's an expensive proposition any way you look at it," Clark said. "We'd have to plow under parking lots and roads. The underground construction would cost at least $25,000, and that's just getting it
"I'm not even sure we could hook up the dorms on room-to-room basis," Clark said. "High-rise rise construction is not cheap, and keeping track of the billings would be a nightmare because of the enormous turnover in students living in the balls."
After cable lines were installed, each television set would then have to be wired into the system. Depending on the hall's antenna system, considerable time and money may be required to drill through walls and concrete ledges. Clark said.
THE MCCOLLUM HALL Senate last week considered seeking a cable hookup for television sets in its main lobbies and floor lobbies, said Mike Hutchins, Wincinfield senior.
"Several people have brought the idea up, but we're still researching it," Hutchins said. "The smartest thing to do, I think, would be to get all the dorms on the Hill interested in getting cable and to pool our funds."
The cost of bringing cable to the halls on Daisy Hill might not be the most expensive option, but cablevision, Hutchins said. If cable could be hooked up to televisions in
each lobby, many hall residents might try to illegally tap the cable lines.
BUT EVEN IF residence halls or scholarship halles got cable television in their lobbies, Sunflower Cablevision can't allow them to subscribe to pay television channels such as Home Office, Cinema and Showtime. Clark said.
Linda Lee Davis, a lecturer in the department of radio-telefilm-film who has worked in the past for HBO, said that these pay channels have contracts with motion picture studios that forbid cable broadcasts of films in public areas such as hotels, and maternity. Davis said.
"Their signals are meant for private use," she said. Pay cable channels do not support themselves with advertising like basic cable networks or the Sports Programming Network, MTV, and the news networks, she said.
Members of 12 of 13 sororities and 21 of 23 fraternites said they had cable hookups. Most reported having cable only in TV rooms or living rooms, but in a few houses, students have contracted individually with Sunflower Cablevision to get the extra movie channels.
Most apartment complexes in the city now have cable, Clark said. In some complexes, the owner of the apartments is charged a monthly "bulk rate" to get basic cable service for each apartment.
THE BULK RATE ranges from $3.25 to $4, depending on the number of hookups. Clark said. The owner includes this charge in the monthly rent and passes it on to his tenants.
Rate adjustments redefine services
By CHRIS BARBER Staff Reporter
Changes in Sunflower Cablevision rates will mean an increase in monthly bills for some customers and a decrease for others, a company official said this week.
The changes amount to a redefinition of services offered to subscribers, said Dave Clark, general manager of Sunflower Cablevision. The service will be increased to include what was called extended service.
The basic cable rate will increase from $8 to $10.40 a month in November, he said, but subscribers channels Subscribers already carry extended service will see a drop in their monthly bill, from $11 to $10.40.
AT PRESENT, BASIC service includes 11 channels: MTW, VWDAF, KCTV, CABLE 6, KCPT, KSNT, WTBS, WTKS, KWSB, and WIBW.
Extended service added KEKR,
KLDH, CBN, ESPN, USA Network,
(with Nickelodeon, which
includes "Arts" channel, to
the basic service.
Clark said a dramatic increase in sales of "cable-ready" televisions prompted the change. Cable-ready televisions can receive extended service without subscribing to Sunflower. Clark said.
The extended service channels normally are found between channels six and seven, but because many recent models can receive 105 channels, they can pick up extended service. he said.
"It was OK when we were being paid for everyone subscribing to us," Clark said. "I checked around town, and about 70 percent of the TVs being sold are cable-ready."
AS A RESULT OF the accessibility to their channels, cable suppliers such as ESPN and CNN have changed their basic prices to make up for possible revenue losses. That forced Sunflower to change its rates. Clark said.
In the past, he said, the suppliers, charged Sunflower for subscribers, only carrying their channels on extended service.
But now, because it is relatively easy for TV owners to receive the channels without paying, he said, the suppliers have begun charging for all basic service subscribers.
"We had to do something to account for lost revenue," Clark said. "This is really all we can do. The suppliers aren't losing money, because they are charging us."
Clark said that the only other alternative would be scrambling transmissions of extended service. But, he said, scrambling would be too expensive because it would require customers to buy descrambling boxes.
Sunflower's last change in basic cable rates was January 1980, he said.
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