TCI Stacks The Deck In Its Heavily Promoted Cable-TV Survey. By Rick Emrich TCI OF TUCSON'S much-ballyhooed cable television survey, which began appearing in customers' mailboxes in mid-April, is being criticized as biased and manipulative by public access television programmers and by city officials. The survey has raised the ire of Access Tucson, the organization responsible for administering public access programming on Tucson's cable system. It's also irritated the city telecommunications office, which is preparing to go back into talks with TCI to renegotiate the now-defunct agreement allowing the Colorado-based multinational company to operate the cable system within Tucson city limits. Issuing the survey seems, in part, to be a move to placate viewers irate over recent channel juggling by the cable operator. A few months back, TCI booted Comedy Central, WGN-TV and other popular stations from the cable system, replacing them with a handful of upstart channels that reportedly paid TCI unprecedented launch fees to get on the air. The move triggered nearly 1,000 complaints to the city's telecommunications office, which is responsible for making sure TCI plays nice with its Tucson customers (See "Troubled Vision," Tucson Weekly, February 6). For the past several weeks, city cable viewers have been haunted by the spectre of local TCI General Manager Ken Watts in an oft-run television advertisement pitching the survey. In the commercial, Watts says the company wants to give customers the opportunity to tell them what channels they ought to carry locally. But the survey, which consists of three multiple-choice questions and fits on one side of a post card, does not ask viewers to rank their station preferences. Instead, it lists a dozen public, educational, and government channels (PEGs) that are carried on the system as part of a license agreement between the company and the city, and asks respondents, "How many PEG access channels would you support TCI dropping if they were replaced with new programming channels?" It allows them to pick any number, from zero to 12. The other two multiple-choice questions ask viewers what types of programming they'd like to see added to TCI's line-up (sports, movies, inspirational, etc.) and what specific channels they'd like to see added (the company lists nine). A half-inch space is left at the end of the survey for general comments. The PEGs on the Tucson cable system include four public access channels administered by Access Tucson; educational channels run by the University of Arizona, Pima Community College, the Tucson Unified School District, and the Tucson/Pima Arts Council; and government channels carrying city information. Making space on the cable system for PEGs is one of the commitments cable operators made to the city in exchange for using public rights-of-way to deliver cable service. City Telecommunications Administrator Bob Hunnicutt says the survey looks as if it were "designed to evade license requirements" that ensure PEGs are carried on the system--requirements TCI agreed to when it took control of the cable service in Tucson more than two years ago. Also, Hunnicutt seems puzzled about what the company expects to learn from the survey. "I've never seen a more biased tool for gathering information," he told The Weekly, adding the survey, "is certainly not as advertised." Sam Behrend, executive director of Access Tucson, is angered by the survey. He suggests TCI just wanted to have some numbers to give to the city in order to argue for cutting public access channels. Behrend calls the survey "an insult to TCI customers," and "a big waste of subscriber dollars." He also criticizes the survey because it could easily be falsified. "For all I know," says Behrend, "they've got their customer-service representatives filling out hundreds of these things a day." Watts responds brusquely to the implication TCI might be trying to cook its numbers. "What we're after," he says, "is to provide the best service to our customers, period. Why would we sway evidence? That's moronic." But a local cable expert, Eileen Meehan, says the survey is clearly biased against access channels, and the information it produces "will not be worth what it costs to mail it back to TCI." Meehan is a professor in the University of Arizona's Department of Media Arts, and is experienced with designing and conducting surveys on people's attitudes about television. She says the TCI survey narrowly limits the views respondents are allowed to express, uses confusing wording, and is too abstract. "A survey," says Meehan, "is relatively simple to do. But to do it right, you must be rule governed and committed to clear communication. It's an interesting art, and it's very easily abused." TCI's survey bears little resemblance to legitimate past surveys undertaken jointly by the city and cable providers to determine how best to meet the needs of Tucsonans. One such study, which resulted in a 50-page document, was conducted two years ago by FMR Associates, and used proven sampling methods to develop a detailed picture of customer satisfaction. That survey showed that a large majority of cable subscribers did not feel there was too much emphasis on public access programming in Tucson. Watts says TCI set up the current survey as a response to customers feeling like they had not been consulted about company decisions. And while he resents the suggestion the survey is a targeted attack against public access, Watts says the number of PEGs in Tucson is "disproportionate," and concedes he does not foresee removing any commercial stations to make room for other channels customers might prefer. Given market demands and contractual obligations, he says, "We got to the point where there's really not a lot of other options" besides cutting PEG channels. "I can't see how they're going to accomplish anything except spreading bad will with this survey," said Behrend. "Pretty soon, subscribers are going to say, 'Enough, Mr. Denver Media Behemoth.' " Behrend's good will has surely been tested beyond reasonable limits. Under the expired license agreement, Access Tucson's funding comes from cable-provider revenues. But since December 6, TCI has stopped funding the organization, arguing its obligation has ended--a claim city officials dispute. Behrend says Access Tucson has had to slash its operating budget and use money intended for video production grants in order to get by. "We're not happy about using the grant money for this purpose," he said, "but we have to. We prefer to think of it as a loan we'll pay back." Still, Behrend points out Access Tucson relies on the cable operator for its existence, and says the organization wants TCI to be successful. Both he and Hunnicutt say the number of PEG channels on the system is negotiable. TCI and city officials go back to the table April 30 to try to salvage the cable agreement through informal negotiations. The major issues on which the parties have yet to reach an understanding are the degree of support for PEG channels, a plan for repairing the dilapidated cable, and technological upgrading of the system. Should they fail to come to terms, Hunnicutt says, the city is poised to begin a much more formal--and expensive--round of negotiations. Photo by Sean Justice

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