Time Warner Cable creating theme-based channel lineups

[ShawnHill1]

Syracuse, New York is being used as a test market starting June 18th, and if all goes well, TWC plans on rolling out the restructed lineups to the rest of its systems across the country by August. TWC's systems in Wisconsin and Ohio already use theme lineups, and it's more or less same here in Los Angeles since the transition over from Comcast in 2006.

This restructing also comes with a twist...those with HD or HD-DVR recievers won't have to worry about duplication of SD and HD versions of networks and stations. Very similar to what DirecTV has with their HD/HD DVR boxes, TWC subscribers will only recieve the HD version of a particular network/station (if said channel has a HD equivalent), while standard-definition digital cable subscribers will simply get the SD version. Essentially, from my understanding, there will not be a more separate HD tier for subscribers.

Here are the themed tiers...

100s: General Entertainment/Life & Style: ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC stations plus popular networks like TNT, USA, FX, MTV, ETC.
Low 200s: News networks
250-270: Kids networks: Disney and Nickelodeon (and their respective spinoff networks), Cartoon Network, PBS Spourt, Boomerang, etc.
285-299: Music networks: MTV Jams, MTV Hits, CMT Pure Country, Palladia, etc.
300s: Sports
460s: Religious
480s: Shopping
500-650s: Movies: including on-demand content, premium networks, basic movie networks like Sundance, IFC, TCM
650s: Pay-per-view events
700s: Sports packages: NBA League Pass, MLB Extra Innings, ESPN's college basketball and football packages, and NHL Center Ice
800-900s: Latino
1000s: On-Demand
1200s: Local programming including subchannels
1400s: International
1800s: Adult programming
1900s: Music Choice

http://www.cnyradio.com/2013/05/21/time-warner-announces-massive-channel-lineup-shuffle/

 

[therealjm12]

Time Warner in Neighboring Rochester has been doing that for several years. Each 100's has a different theme.

 

[Morgan Wick]

What was the lineup like before that it DIDN'T group like channels together?

Comcast hasn't changed its lineups here in Seattle except to add and remove channels in ages, and the result is that some channel placements have been a bit haphazard, even when they try to fit a theme. The recent addition of several HD channels consisted in large measure of barfing up a lot of channels at the end of the main HD lineup in the 600s and 700s. If they simply flip Fox Soccer to FXX, though, it'll be in the all-sports 400-470 range in SD and near the 620-637 sports range, and surrounded by CSN NW and CBC at 617 and 619, the latter being the only other non-sports channel in the 600s before 645, in HD, so either they might do at least some larger-scale shakeups or just give FXX a new channel position and flip 401 and 618 to Fuel/Fox Sports 2.

 

[Sammi Brie]

In ours there's really no rhyme or reason to the analog lineup (Cox Phoenix), except that (most of) the sports channels kinda came together and there's a small cluster of Spanish stations. News channels are all over the map, general entertainment sprinkled throughout...

There hasn't been much change in 10 years, either. Lots of channels still in the same places, though some have moved up to digital cable (CMT, OLN/Versus for a time, ESPN Classic, Discovery Health, C-SPAN2 and all the premium and PPV). The biggest changes involve the Spanish stations (there are a couple more of them in basic cable, including our UniMás outlet, and Telemundo moved to basic cable after its big 2006 license swap), channel moves (TBS recently moved to a higher channel number, for instance, since it's not really a superstation of any sort) and general other changes (there's no longer a public safety access channel).

 

[mgsports]

KC date please and what about Digital Tier Channels where will the go in front of HD Channel like if ESPNU SD is 304 then 305 ESPNU HD? Will they spread out Local HD channels because stations always adding Digital Sub Channels from time to time and for example lets say KMBC HD is 1000 and METV is 1001 then leave channels numbers after maybe up to 1010 for future Digital Sub Channels they may add because on Surewestkc at the moment on 632 is KMCI HD but on 633 is E HD and 631 COZITV meaning no room for KMCI LIve Well Network only if they move COZITV to 629 or E some where else.

 

[anotherguyTN]

If cable systems can't or won't go to ala carte this would be the nxt best thing.

 

[nathannah]

Charter and Time Warner where I am themed their lineups somewhat back about ten years ago, but eventually with HD and channel adds, it's become kind of crowded. For instance on Charter, CNN and HLN are at 55 and 56, while Fox News (added after the shuffle) is on 70, while the Big Ten Network and MLB are on 73 and 83, far away from the sports nets over in the 30's. Meanwhile Style has bounced around all over the place depending on how well NBCU does on each go around with their carriage deals; it's been on 43, 76 and now 27 over the years.

And now the HD tier is becoming crowded too; the extended basics are getting into the 720's far out of their tiers since everything from 620-720 has an assignment now. It's a tangled mess, but still better than the bad old days with two individual cables of 40 channels divided by the A/B switch (if you forgot to switch to A, you get two hours of CNBC instead of ABC, and grief for the next week). I do not miss having to use that thing.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Springfield, IL is currently a Comcast market (and has been since NYD 2008), but we formerly had Insight throughout most of the '00s--including fall 2006 when they developed a theme-based lineup. For the most part this lineup has continued into the Comcast era--including dual 2- and 3-di channel numbers for Extended Basic channels (e.g., ESPN, CNN, TBS, MTV, etc.).

1-On Demand
2-72, 89, 98: Extended Basic 2-di channels
100s and 200s: General Entertainment (e.g., TBS, USA, religious, shopping)
300s: Kids
(about 340-405--Spanish/foreign language channels)
400s: News and Information (CNN, Fox News, History, etc.)
500s: Sports
600s and 700s: Premiums
800s: Music (including Music Choice), PPV
900s: HD channels (plus some have been inserted in the 600s).

This is how Zap2it shows the Springfield Comcast lineup so you can see for yourself:

http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/tvlist...reference=false&lineupId=IL12439:X&aid=zap2it

 

[mgsports]

1100's,1300's,1500's,1600's,1700's whats going to be on them?
Also with HD Box will 1-99 still be picked uped?
You got leave space after KSMOTV SD/HD in 1200's for Bounce TV and also KPXE for ION Shop.
BHN to?

 

[Dave-N2DS]

"I think I'll move my deck chair to the other side of the boat..... away from the iceberg side..."

It is probably a slight improvement. Their boxes are way too slow, as changing channels takes way too much time. I now know what they did with all those Commodore 64 processors. They also tell me, a paying customer, that I can't see my desired channel right now and that I should try again later. *Maybe* then they might *allow* me to watch.

I am waiting for ala carte service from Time Warner, but knowing them, I'll end up with ala queda service.

I was going to cut the cord last March, but the soothed me with a discount, good for one year, so I expect that next March I will return their boxes.

Dave, near Corning, NY

 

[willdav713]

Syracuse, New York is being used as a test market starting June 18th, and if all goes well, TWC plans on rolling out the restructed lineups to the rest of its systems across the country by August. TWC's systems in Wisconsin and Ohio already use theme lineups, and it's more or less same here in Los Angeles since the transition over from Comcast in 2006.

This restructing also comes with a twist...those with HD or HD-DVR recievers won't have to worry about duplication of SD and HD versions of networks and stations. Very similar to what DirecTV has with their HD/HD DVR boxes, TWC subscribers will only recieve the HD version of a particular network/station (if said channel has a HD equivalent), while standard-definition digital cable subscribers will simply get the SD version. Essentially, from my understanding, there will not be a more separate HD tier for subscribers.

Here are the themed tiers...

100s: General Entertainment/Life & Style: ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC stations plus popular networks like TNT, USA, FX, MTV, ETC.
Low 200s: News networks
250-270: Kids networks: Disney and Nickelodeon (and their respective spinoff networks), Cartoon Network, PBS Spourt, Boomerang, etc.
285-299: Music networks: MTV Jams, MTV Hits, CMT Pure Country, Palladia, etc.
300s: Sports
460s: Religious
480s: Shopping
500-650s: Movies: including on-demand content, premium networks, basic movie networks like Sundance, IFC, TCM
650s: Pay-per-view events
700s: Sports packages: NBA League Pass, MLB Extra Innings, ESPN's college basketball and football packages, and NHL Center Ice
800-900s: Latino
1000s: On-Demand
1200s: Local programming including subchannels
1400s: International
1800s: Adult programming
1900s: Music Choice

http://www.cnyradio.com/2013/05/21/time-warner-announces-massive-channel-lineup-shuffle/

They already do themes in Time Warner's Austin market. Have been for years.
You also mention that they will do away with duplicating channels into HD and SD. I have Time Warner in Austn and DirectTV in San Antonio. The way Direct TV works is you can choose to receive just the HD or have it all SD only on their HD Tuner which is in the living room, the Bedrooms have the standard SD Set Top box.

But back to Time Warner, how will this effect subscribers who rent their HD box (that's the only ones they lease, and have CRT Tube sets?) How would it effect those who use a Cable Card Tivo as a Cable Tuner?

 

[fybush]

If all you have is a CRT set, why spend the money to rent an HD box?

But if you're really determined to do that...the HD boxes (at least my SA 8300) still have SD composite outputs, and even SD RF channel 3/4 outputs, and they do downconvert the HD channels to SD. The most recent software update that's been pushed to my SA 8300 includes an "HD Only" option that will automatically select the HD counterpart when an SD channel is punched in - or I can set it to still use the SD version if I want that.

 

[newsmark]

Automatically picking the HD channel sounds great, if they can make HD versions work consistently. Some days, certain channels just won't come up for me, thanks to SDV. "This channel will be available shortly," can mean anywhere from a few seconds to a day or two.

I agree that it takes to long for TWC's boxes to switch channels. From the time you switch 'til you have a signal locked in can be 10 seconds. I've only used Uverse at a friend's house, but switching channels there is instant. The first couple of times, it was so fast I thought I must have accidentally switched the TV's input rather than the Uverse box.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Automatically picking the HD channel sounds great, if they can make HD versions work consistently. Some days, certain channels just won't come up for me, thanks to SDV. "This channel will be available shortly," can mean anywhere from a few seconds to a day or two.

old wiring probably has something to do with it

 

[willdav713]

If all you have is a CRT set, why spend the money to rent an HD box?

But if you're really determined to do that...the HD boxes (at least my SA 8300) still have SD composite outputs, and even SD RF channel 3/4 outputs, and they do downconvert the HD channels to SD. The most recent software update that's been pushed to my SA 8300 includes an "HD Only" option that will automatically select the HD counterpart when an SD channel is punched in - or I can set it to still use the SD version if I want that.

Because Time Warner only offers HD boxes. I also have a Tivo Premiere HD w/Cablecard and Tuning Adapter.

 

[willdav713]

Automatically picking the HD channel sounds great, if they can make HD versions work consistently. Some days, certain channels just won't come up for me, thanks to SDV. "This channel will be available shortly," can mean anywhere from a few seconds to a day or two.

old wiring probably has something to do with it

I still have that problem on their boxes. My Tivo switches without delay. I hooked up an Amp to the wiring (it's RG-59) to the box and it only took 2 seconds off the up to 10 seconds delay. It has to be software related as well.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Automatically picking the HD channel sounds great, if they can make HD versions work consistently. Some days, certain channels just won't come up for me, thanks to SDV. "This channel will be available shortly," can mean anywhere from a few seconds to a day or two.

old wiring probably has something to do with it

I still have that problem on their boxes. My Tivo switches without delay. I hooked up an Amp to the wiring (it's RG-59) to the box and it only took 2 seconds off the up to 10 seconds delay. It has to be software related as well.

the box might need be rebooted frequently