Captive Audiences : Viewers find they are at mercy of their community cable companies for price, services, channels

You can choose your friends, your supermarket and the right to remain silent if you are arrested. But once you settle into a place to live, you cannot choose your cable television company.

Like electricity and gas providers, cable companies are monopolies in the areas they serve, but with an important difference. Power companies provide a uniform product--there is no discernible difference between the electricity provided by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and, say, Southern California Edison. But cable TV services and the prices you pay for them can vary widely.

About 20 cable companies operate on the Westside and in the San Fernando, Conejo, Simi and Antelope valleys, each with a different fee schedule, channel lineup and installation charge. Among those systems surveyed for this article, the fees for basic service range from $10 to $19.90 a month, the installation charges run the gamut from $15 to $52, the number of channels available for a basic fee range from 10 to 48, and the charge for the most popular of the premium services, Home Box Office, ranges from $9.95 to $14.65 a month (see chart).

The reasons for all this diversity are historical, political and financial. Some of these systems, especially in areas where television reception was extremely poor or non-existent before the advent of cable, are well over 20 years old. They were built long before technology expanded the number of available channels and enhanced the quality of reception.

Others came on line during the cable boom years of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the competition to wire urban areas was intense. In bidding wars, cable companies promised municipalities large numbers of basic and pay services, plus other goodies such as public access and local government channels, pay-per-view capability and stereo sound.

Until Dec. 29, 1986, municipalities could regulate the fees that cable companies charged customers, but that considerable bargaining chip was taken away by a federal cable deregulation law that bars state and local governments from setting rates. Fees have, not surprisingly, gone up since then. According to Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), who introduced legislation in May to bring back some regulation to the industry, basic cable service prices have risen 32% nationally since deregulation. Cable operators have spoken out against the proposed legislation, which is still in committee, saying that fees were kept artificially low when they were regulated and that they needed to bring in more income to update and maintain their systems.

The following is a capsule look at cable operators serving the Westside and the valleys:

ATC-American Cable Vision: Serving 18,800 customers, out of a potential subscriber base of almost 21,500 in Canyon Country, this system is owned by one of the industry giants--American Television Communications, which itself is 82% owned by Time Warner, which also owns HBO and Cinemax.

Cablevision: With 77,000 subscribers out of a possible 180,000 households, West Valley Cablevision is the largest cable operator in the San Fernando Valley. It serves an area west of the San Diego Freeway plus the city of San Fernando.

CalaVision: This relatively small system, built in 1969 in Calabasas, has 1,200 customers out of a possible 1,500. Cable professionals call this a captive system because over-the-air television reception in the area is poor.

Capp’s Electronics: Only 203 households (out of 253) subscribe to this system in Lake Hughes, about 20 miles northeast of Castaic Lake. Owned by electronics dealer Capp Loughboro of Ventura, it is, by far, the smallest system in the area.

Century Cable: The lucrative Westside market has been a headache for this huge system, which has the largest number of subscribers of the 17 companies surveyed (143,900 in Los Angeles County). Begun by Howard Hughes in the early 1950s, the system has gone through several owners, most recently Century, which purchased it in 1987. The system includes the communities of Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and West Hollywood, all of which have taken an active role in overseeing their cable service. Indeed, last year, because of numerous complaints about customer service, the Beverly Hills City Council collected fines from Century, accusing the company of violating service provisions in its contract. At the time William Rosendahl, vice president of Century, complained that the area probably had the toughest standards in the country for cable operators.

In addition, West Hollywood threatened to break its contract with Century over the service issue last year, and Santa Monica has been negotiating over the franchise renewal for years.

This year the controversies have cooled in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, and Rosendahl said the company is finalizing its negotiations with Santa Monica. He also said Century is partway through a massive rebuilding program to make it state-of-the-art.

But controversy is likely to stir again when Century increases its rates for basic service Sept. 1 to $19 in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills and to $18.25 in all its other areas.

Continental Cablevision: This system, one of the largest in the Los Angeles area, includes Venice, Mar Vista, Culver City, Palms and parts of Marina del Ray, West Los Angeles and Hollywood. (There are 86,000 subscribers in Los Angeles County.)

Until the system was bought by American Cablesystems in 1986, large portions of its franchise area in Hollywood remained unwired for cable, much to the consternation of its residents. American began an expansion that wired about 25,000 additional households per year and that expansion has been continued by Continental Cablevision, which took over in February, 1988.

According to Continental’s director of marketing, Ed Gorman, all but about 50,000 homes in its service area are wired for cable and the expansion continues.

Comcast Cablevision: Covering portions of Simi Valley, the system is undergoing a rebuilding and expansion of services. This month four channels, including VH-1 and C-Span, were added to its basic service lineup.

Comcast has 23,400 subscribers out of a possible 32,000.

Crescenta Valley Cable: This small system in the La Crescenta area has about 1,500 subscribers, out of a possible 3,000, getting its 31 basic channels.

Falcon Cable TV: Covering unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County in the vicinity of Calabasas, Topanga Canyon and Woodland Hills, plus parts of Malibu and Thousand Oaks, Falcon has largely a captive audience that cannot receive much television without cable. Parts of its system are more than 20 years old, which has led to reception problems.

Last year, Thousand Oaks took the serious step of commissioning an $18,000 study of the situation. At the time, city officials said the study was undertaken in case the city decided to change cable operators when the system came up for refranchising in 1991 (under federal law, a city must provide evidence as to why it wants to switch companies).

Recently, Thousand Oaks employee Carol Williams said that although the study is an “ongoing process,� in the last year Falcon has shown a willingness to work with city officials to formulate a plan to rebuild and improve the system. Falcon has 13,500 subscribers out of a possible 17,000.

Jones Intercable: In a rapidly growing area of the Antelope Valley, this system covering Palmdale, Lancaster and California City has 43,000 subscribers out of a possible 65,000.

King VideoCable: Now undergoing a two-year, $7-million rebuilding project to replace equipment throughout the system, King covers a large area that includes Sunland, Tujunga, Sylmar, Pacoima, Newhall Saugus and Valencia.

In the Sunland-Tujunga area, it is known for a particularly active, locally oriented public access channel, which includes a local newscast several nights a week. (The newscast, which has been off for the past several months during the rebuilding, is due to be revived soon.) Subscribers in the area pay 50 cents a month extra to support the channel. King has 26,000 subscribers out of a possible 39,000.

Littlerock Cable TV: This system has a two-tier basic price system that offers 10 channels for a monthly charge of $10. For an additional $5.50, customers get an additional 14 channels.

It has 2,000 subscribers out of a possible 3,000. The company is working on an expansion that will double its level of potential subscribers.

Lost Hills Communications: This new system near the Hidden Hills area serves a small group of new homes. It has 922 subscribers our of a possible 1,142.

Mountain Meadows Cable: This small system in Moorpark has a perfect record: Every one of the 1,500 households in its area subscribes to the system. It only serves the Mountain Meadows tract of homes, which were all pre-wired for cable.

Sammons Communications: The system in Glendale and Burbank, which was originally built in 1962, underwent a major rebuilding in 1979. It is expanding into a previously unwired, 1,000-home area of La Canada Flintridge.

The latest improvement to service, which reaches 60,000 subscribers out of a potential 116,000, is the addition of stereo sound to the pay channels that Sammons offers.

United Cable TV: Of all the cable systems in the survey, United certainly had the most trouble getting off the ground. The company won the franchise to wire the San Fernando Valley area east of the San Diego Freeway, including Van Nuys and North Hollywood, in 1983 with a promise that the system would be completed by Dec. 7, 1985. After several extentions and paying the city of Los Angeles fines of more than $450,000 because of delays, the system was finally declared complete on May 11, 1989. United still isn’t out of the woods on the fines front--a decision is pending in the City Council over whether to levy an additional $300,000 in fines, also because of the delays. United has 53,000 subscribers out of a possible 147,000.

Ventura County Cablevision: Ventura covers all of Camarillo, Fillmore, Santa Paula and Ojai, and parts of Thousand Oaks and Moorpark. It also extends into Agoura Hills and parts of Calabasas and Las Virgenes. It has 77,500 subscribers out of a possible 95,000.

CABLE TV SYSTEMS

BASIC FEE INSTALL- SYSTEM LOCATION (CHANNELS) HBO FEE ATION FEE ATC Canyon Country, $15.17 (33) $10.75 $35 Saugus, Newhall Cablevision West San Fernando $19.65 (48) $10.30 $50 Valley Calavision Calabasas $13.95 (23) $13 $40 Capp’s Lake Hughes $12.60 (15) $12.55 $52 Century Marina del Rey, $16.50 (32-34) $14.65 $20-26.35 Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, West L.A., Century Beverly Hills, $16.50 (38-42) $14.65 $26.25 West Hollywood Comcast Simi Valley $16.95 (28) $11.95 $49.95 Continental Culver City, Hollywood, $18.95 (38) $10 $15-$33 Marina del Rey, Mar Vista, Palms, Venice Crescenta La Crescenta $13.95 (26) $10.95 $25 Falcon Calabasses, Malibu, $14.50 (18) $14 $35 Topanga, Woodland Hills Jones Antelope Valley $16.95 (31) $10.50 $39.95 King Sylmar $13.95 (25) $10 $40 King Sunland,Tujunga $14.95 (25) $10 $40 Pacoima, Littlerock Littlerock $10.00 (10) $10.95 $25 Lost Hills Lost Hills $14.00 (22) $TK $35 Mountain Moorpark $14.94 (33) $11.95 $34.95 Sammons Burbank, Glendale, $15.50 (28) $10.95 $30 La Can. Flintridge United North Hollywood, $14.45 (48) $10.95 $30 Van Nuys, East San Fernando Valley Ventura Agoura Hills, $15.95 (28) $9.95 $44.95 Westlake Thousand Oaks,

Additional fees may be assessed to hook up televisions that are not “cable ready,� to activate premium services, or for non-standard installations. Some of the prices quoted by cable systems already include franchise fees and other local taxes.