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Time Warner Cable customers in Central New York will be the first to test the cable company’s newest plan for a nationwide channel realignment that will move almost every cable channel into a new “theme-based” lineup.
Starting June 18, customers in Syracuse and suburbs, Auburn, Cortland, Fulton, Oswego and the Rome/Oneida/Camden/Sylvan Beach area will have to hunt for their favorite networks in a new lineup numbered from channels 1 to 1999. Two days later, customers in Jefferson and Lewis Counties, plus Boonville, Champlain, Malone, Massena, Ogdensburg and Potsdam will see their lineup changed. On June 25, the same will happen in Candor, Hamilton, Ilion, Old Forge, Ithaca, Utica and the Tri-Lakes area.
Channels 1-99, mostly received by analog television customers, will be unaffected for now.
Time Warner Cable has used a theme/genre-based channel lineup for several years, but new or renamed networks have occasionally turned up in unexpected places. The increasing prevalence of HD networks has also made a mess of things, with some markets featuring HD basic cable networks nestled between premium movie channels. The channel realignment is designed to “simplify” things.
Among the welcome changes: HD viewers will automatically receive the HD version of those networks and channels, if available. DVRs will automatically map scheduled recordings to their new channel numbers.
If the channel changes prove successful, which we assume means subscriber backlash is not judged too great, Time Warner Cable customers across the country will begin to see the same channel lineup changes in their areas beginning this August.
Here is a guide to the new lineup. Note the block dedicated to HD networks is gone:
- 1-99: Remain unchanged and are watched mostly by analog viewers with or without a set-top box
- 100s: Entertainment, Life and Style channels
- 200-249: News and Information
- 250-270: Children/Family
- 285-299: Music TV
- 300s: Sports
- 460-479: Religion
- 480-499: Shopping
- 500-649: Premium movie channels
- 650-654: Pay per view
- 670-699: 3D television networks
- 700-799: Premium sports packages
- 800-999: Latino/Spanish programming
- 1000-1199: On-demand channels
- 1200-1399: Local channels
- 1400-1799: International/Ethnic language channels
- 1800-1899: Adult Entertainment
- 1900-1999: Music Choice
[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Time Warner Cable CNY Channel Changes 5-22-13.flv[/flv]
Time Warner Cable produced this video to introduce Central New York customers to the new channel lineup that will likely soon be in place across all Time Warner Cable service areas. (2 minutes)
This is a welcome change! We already have to hunt all over for the channels. However, I wish they would have just done this in conjunction with the digital transition all at once. Leave the locals in the sub 100 range and theme everything else out. If they scrapped SDV with a switch to all digital and offered a loaded 6 tuner whole home DVR the actually functioned it would go a long way to winning over customers.
I have DirecTV and I have been over to my families homes that have Time Warner connected to a HDTV via a Time Warner STB, The HD channels are all over the map. Personally I think this is well over due on TW. On DirecTV most channels are placed in theme channel ranges and the HD channels are remapped to the SD channel assignment. Never understood why TW didn’t do this. I went to a friends house almost 2 years ago and he was always complaining the HD was overrated. I told him he had to tune the the HD… Read more »