In response to mounting criticism over objectionable programming, Comcast on Thursday unveiled a G-rated package to help families navigate the expanding and sometimes raunchy TV universe.
The Federal Communications Commission has criticized television for sex, violence and bad language, and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin urged cable executives to come up with tools for parents to wade through the hundreds of cable channels. Last week, a cable industry spokesman promised a Senate committee that companies would be offering family-friendly packages.
Comcast, the nation’s leading cable TV provider, said its “family tier” will include Disney Channel, Toon Disney, PBS KIDS Sprout, Discovery Kids, Discovery’s Science Channel, Nickelodeon/Nick Too, Nickelodeon’s games and sports channel GAS, Trinity Broadcasting’s TBN, HGTV, Food Network, DIY, CNN Headline News, the Weather Channel, National Geographic, C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2.
“There is definitely a market for that,” said Alison R.G. van Diggelen, editor of siliconmom.com and a San Jose, Calif., mother of two. “TV is a concern to a lot of moms. You can’t always be in the room with them.”
The family package would add $19 to the minimum or “basic” cable bill for customers. That means a customer in the South Bay would pay $30 to $35 a month for 20 to 25 basic channels, 16 channels in the “family tier” and a set-top digital converter. Basic cable includes the broadcast networks ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, UPN, WB, PBS, Telemundo, Univision and local independent channels. The price for basic service varies depending on fees charged by each city.
The “family tier” offerings overlap existing digital packages, said Andrew C. Johnson, Comcast’s vice president of communications in Concord, Calif. “It’s a new package that takes some of the existing programming that focuses on family-oriented shows.” The channels offer only programs that are rated TV-G and broadcast few live programs.
It’s not just prime-time programming that concerns families, Van Diggelen said, but inappropriate ads that are larded into family-hour programs. “You can’t relax as a family,” she said. “You have to be ready with the clicker to change channels.”
Comcast’s package won’t please critics who are pushing for “a la carte pricing,” which would allow consumers to pick and choose individual channels and create their own cable lineups.
The Parents Television Council, a Los Angeles-based watchdog group, was still reviewing Comcast’s proposal Thursday afternoon. But PTC President L. Brent Bozell blasted a similar proposal by Time Warner, the nation’s No. 2 cable company, calling it “a bad joke” and saying it was “designed to fail.”
Neither cable company’s package includes family-oriented programming offered on such channels as ESPN, the History Channel, Biography, the Learning Channel, MSNBC and Fox News. The Time Warner package does offer CNN, the news channel that it owns.
For more information, call (800) COMCAST or (866) 781-1888 or go to www.comcast.com.
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