Time Warner Launches Family Tier

[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John M. Higgins & John Eggerton]
Time Warner announced a new "Family Choice" tier of programming on Thursday. While the 15-channel tier will include one top network --The Disney Channel -- it is composed largely of spinoffs of cable's most popular networks. The new Family Choice tier will include: Boomerang, C-SPAN 2, C-SPAN 3, CNN Headline News, The Science Channel, Discovery Kids, Disney Channel, Toon Disney, DIY Network, FIT-TV, Food Network, HGTV, La Familia, Nick Games & Sports, and The Weather Channel. The tier will be rolled out during the first quarter of 2006 and cost $12.99 monthly. The tier is a digital cable package requiring many subscribers to pay more for a new converter for many customers. Subscribers will still have to buy the broadcast basic tier for around $12 monthly. That tier of 15-20 channels includes the broadcast stations, public, educational and government access channels, C-SPAN and some additional channels varying by market--New York 1 in New York, for example. But they will not have to buy enhanced basic or any other digital tier. Parents Television Council President Brent Bozell called the Time Warner tier a "“a very bad joke. It is perfectly obvious Time Warner is deliberately offering a product designed to fail," he said, going through a laundry list of what he said were family-appropriate channels that weren't in the tier, including ESPN, Turner Classic Movies, Fox News Channel, and a couple dozen more. "I bet you couldn't find five employees of Time Warner who would subscribe to this foolishness for their own families," he said.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6291767?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP
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* Time Warner Spells Out Family Tier
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6291783.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP
(requires subscription)

* PTC Calls Time Warner’s ‘Family Tier’ a “Very Bad Joke”
http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/release/2005/1215.asp

* Cost of Time Warner's new family tier raises eyebrows
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20051216/1b_familycable16.art.htm