Several Rio Grande Valley cities are taking legal action against cable giant Time Warner Cable.
The cities of McAllen, San Juan, Laredo, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Edinburg and San Marcos said they filed a temporary restraining order Friday against the cable giant in a Hidalgo County court.
They are seeking to halt Time Warner’s plans to its plan to digitize public, educational and governmental (PEG) channels in Texas.
This is in response to Time Warner Cable (TWC) announcing that it will stop providing PEG channels in an analog format on October 1, 2010 at which time it will solely provide these channels in a digital format.
The company will continue, however, to provide other basic tier programming, including broadcast channels in an analog format.
PEG channels would be moved to digital channels 135.12 and 135.17 to free up space for Time Warner Cable’s commercial interests.
As a result, on October 1, 2010, a TWC cable subscriber in Texas with analog equipment will be able to watch the PEG channels ONLY if the subscriber obtains additional cable equipment.
The subscriber may also be subject to additional fees.
Action 4 News emailed Time Warner Cable for a response.
Caompany spokeswoman Melissa Solora sent the following statement:
"Time Warner Cable will voluntarily delay the digitization of the Public, Education and Government Access channels for 15 days, until October 15, 2010, in the coalition cities only, to allow for the action to be fully briefed and heard by the federal court."
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