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© St. Petersburg Times, published December 16, 2002
In one of the season's less festive rituals, Time Warner Cable has recently been informing its Tampa Bay area customers of an average 5 percent rate hike coming in January.
But there's also been an increase for frugal subscribers who pay to get HBO (or other premium movie packages) but don't pay the extra $7.95 a month that Time Warner tries its best to impose for its "digital multimedia value package" of additional channels plus its Navigator onscreen programming guide.
Since October, those subscribers are being required to pay $5.95 a month to get Navigator alone, whether they want it or not. That means they'll save only $2 a month by refusing to take the extra digital channels.
The Navigator provides onscreen information for all cable channels and enables customers to order video-on-demand movies as well.
Why is Time Warner making it mandatory?
Time Warner spokeswoman Linda Chambers said it was simply the way the company had decided to offer its premium movie packages. Besides, she added, the Navigator guide is the most popular feature of its digital programming package, even more so than the programming on the extra channels.