More choices on TV

The Journal Sentinel staff

So you're tired of watching the nightly news from Slovenia and ESPN2's "Yachting" show is getting pretty old.

Never fear, cable subscribers have even more stuff to surf through.

Warner Cable, the biggest cable supplier in the area, has just started an upgrade that ultimately will affect 250,000 Southeast Wisconsin cable subscribers. But that's just the opening act in what ultimately will be a $250 million revamping of Warner's entire cable system over the next four years.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

First things first:

"Basically, all of our customers will be receiving some sort of interim upgrade," said Warner President Tom Sharrard. "The number of channels that are being added is strictly a technical consideration."

Nearly 60,000 area homes have some more choices since the weekend, when Warner switched on a handful of new channels to join the basic service lineup for subscribers in the north and south suburbs and Brookfield. Another 90,000 subscribers will get more channels in June or July, when Warner's Milwaukee system gets upgraded.

It'll cost about 25 cents more per channel, said Sharrard.

All systems will get the most requested new services: The History Channel and the Sci-Fi Channel, but Sharrard says Warner also follows industry trends and does its own market research.

One of the things complicating the search for new channels is the heavy promotion that a cable giant like Turner does for its newest service, in this instance Turner Classic Movies, on its other stations.

"It would be a little bit like publishing the Journal Sentinel and running a comic strip with Blondie and Dagwood telling people to call the paper and ask that they publish another strip," said Sharrard.

That's why Warner does more research than just letting viewers call in their choices.

Here are the changes announced so far:

For 50,000 Warner cable subscribers in 14 North and South Shore communities, the cable menu expanded this weekend to include the History Channel, the Sci-Fi Channel, Home and Garden TV, and Turner Classic Movies. Bravo, a fine arts and movie channel that had been available as a premium channel, became part of the standard package.

In Brookfield, some 7,000 subscribers now have the History Channel, Sci-Fi Channel, Turner Classic Movies and the Cartoon Network added to their roster of basic service channels. m By this summer, more than 90,000 subscribers in the City of Milwaukee will have Sci-Fi, the History Channel and the Cartoon Network. The Learning Channel, now seen part of the time, will go 24 hours.

Work begins next January on the four-year overhaul of the system, using high-tech fiber- optic technology to standardize Warner's service, provide the capacity for many more channels and even allow for interactive communications between the system and viewers.

"Starting next year will really be when the information superhighway will come into being," said Sharrard.

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