Charter Communications, the local cable company for Madison, has announced its plans to move Madison City Channel, the City's local government television station, from cable channel twelve (where it has been located since its beginnings in 1974) to analog basic channel 98 and digital channel 994 effective September 30th, 2008. "While this plan is an improvement over Charter's original plan, which was to make Madison City Channel available only to subscribers renting a Charter digital converter box or who purchase a television with a 'QAM' digital tuner, it still raises questions about Charter's commitment to making local Madison government available to all Madison citizens," said Brad Clark, Madison City Channel Station Manager.

"While we applaud Charter for revising their plan in order to continue to offer Madison City Channel on their analog basic tier, so that all Madison subscribers - not just those who pay extra for digital equipment - can continue to keep track of their local government, we would still like Charter to respond to two very key questions.

"First, Charter's stated reason for moving Madison City Channel to a digital format from analog was their need to free up bandwidth on their system in order to offer subscribers more high-definition channels. Charter has said that they can fit somewhere between 5 and 20 digital channels in the bandwidth taken up by one analog channel. We of course understand Charter needs to offer new and better services to remain competitive with satellite dishes, and we want Charter to be successful. However, if Charter is able to proceed with their plans and still keep Madison City Channel on an analog channel, why move us from channel twelve at all? After almost thirty-five years on twelve, this move is bound to confuse some viewers regardless of how much promotion we are able to do. And, since in Charter's new channel lineup (see attached) they plan to put CSpan on cable channel twelve in our place, they apparently don't need the bandwidth that channel twelve utilizes.

"So question number one - why not just leave us on channel twelve?

"Secondly, how long does Charter plan on offering Madison City Channel on their analog basic tier? Their original plan was to only offer us in digital, until complaints from the Madison community and the threat of legal action prompted them to reconsider. We realize that at some point within the next few years (and almost certainly by 2012), Charter will complete the transition to offering all of their television services solely in digital. This will include other local Madison channels such as WKOW (ABC), WISC (CBS), and WHA (PBS), and the completion of this transition will mean that all Charter subscribers will eventually have to have some sort of digital equipment to receive their services. Again, we understand that digital technology is the future of television, so we understand the need for Charter to make these changes.

"However, we would not find it appropriate for Madison City Channel to be offered only in the digital format until such time as other local channels are also transitioned to solely digital. Were Charter to cease offering Madison City Channel in analog while still offering, for example, WMTV (NBC) on their analog tier, that would discriminate against Charter's analog-only customers (some 45% of their current customer base in Madison) who still wanted to keep track of their local Madison government. The possibility of such discrimination was the basis for the legal action which was contemplated before Charter changed their plans. This discrimination would continue to be unacceptable until, as stated, Charter offers all local Madison channels solely in the digital format.

"We hope that Charter will provide positive and appropriate responses to these issues and that Charter and the City of Madison can again return to a mutually-beneficial relationship in our efforts to make local Madison government accessible to all residents of Madison."