TCI's renewed bid for KCAT's coveted spot on Channel 6 rankles the Town

Town attorney may file a restraining order

TCI wants KICU on 6

By Jeff Kearns

The fight for Channel 6 heated up last week when station managers from KCAT and three other South Bay local-access stations vowed to fight TCI's plan to bump them off of their spots on the channel and replace them with KICU.

KCAT station manager George Sampson says TCI has ignored his requests to talk about the issue for several months, and that the cable provider, which is owned by AT&T, decided to move his station without asking him. TCI announced the planned move in an Aug. 20 letter to the town.

"We're willing to talk, we're willing to listen, but they never call," Sampson said.

TCI's letter said it will be rearranging its cable lineup to group channels by subject matter, starting on Sept. 22. KICU-TV, which is carried on Channel 6 in the rest of the Bay Area, wants to be on that channel everywhere. Los Gatos, Saratoga, Mountain View and Milpitas are the only cities left in the Bay Area that don't have KICU on Channel 6, says TCI spokesman Andrew Johnson. All four cities are slated to have their local-access stations moved to Channel 15.

Town Attorney Orry Korb wrote to TCI in December, telling the cable company that the move, in his opinion, was a violation of TCI's cable franchise with the town, which stipulates that KCAT will be carried on Channel 6. When he heard nothing back, he sent another letter in July, which also went unanswered.

"They've never provided us with the courtesy of a response," Korb says. "If I'm wrong, I wish they'd tell me."

Sampson says he asked Korb to look into filing a restraining order against TCI. Korb said he couldn't comment on what he'd ask the Town but did say he would bring it up in closed session at the council's Sept. 7 meeting, and ask them for direction.

Town Council member Linda Lubeck, who also sits as president of KCAT's board, says the shabby treatment is what really angers her.

"TCI told us months ago that they were planning to bump us off to move KICU in there, and they said it was under the must-carry law, so we looked at [the regulations], and it doesn't meet any of the three criteria of the contract with the town," Lubeck said. "I really can't believe how arrogant they are. They appear to be making decisions in their ivory tower somewhere and totally ignoring our requests for the legal analysis to show us why they think they can change the lineup."

Johnson insists that the cable company did respond to town officials, but couldn't say when or to whom.

Korb's December letter to TCI says that, under the must-carry law, television stations can pick their channel position based on current channel position, an agreement between the station and cable company, or the local station's channel position in either 1992 or 1985. Under TCI's contract with the town, Korb wrote, none of those conditions applies because KICU has never been carried on Channel 6 in Los Gatos and an agreement can't direct relocation under the must-carry requirements.

The situation is further complicated by the recent announcement that KICU's owners are putting the station up for sale, but Johnson says that the potential sale of the station will have no effect whatsoever.

Sampson says that if his station is moved off Channel 6, TCI would offer some sort of compensation for giving up the spot, such as donating equipment to the small station--which operates mostly on donated equipment already--or helping the town televise council meetings, which could be a six-digit endeavor.

Johnson says that's not going to happen.

"We've made a committment to publicize their movement by running spots on all channels and producing channel cards that go to residents," Johnson told the Los Gatos Weekly-Times. "Would we offer concessions because we're obeying the law? To use their analogy, you'd say that if your delivery trucks drove the speed limit, then we'd have to pay for their gas. I don't think we'll be making any monetary or equipment concessions."

Johnson added: "Perhaps their passions would be better-quality programming than fighting us on federal must-carry law. It would be interesting to see them challenge the Supreme Court."

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