ROGERS ANNOUNCES NEW SPECIALTY CHANNEL PACKAGE
By Adnews Staff
Toronto-based Rogers Cablesystems will launch 16 new specialty channels on Oct. 17, 10 Canadian stations and six U.S. To promote the station, Rogers will offer a preview period to customers. If they want the channels, customers can order them from the company. If they don't want them, customers will stop receiving the services once the preview period is over. Rogers will also promote the new specialty channels using a national print, radio and TV campaign created by Enterprise Advertising. The new channels will be offered as a package for $5.99 a month. The package will also include The Family Channel and WTBS superstation, which were previously pay TV services. Rogers found itself in hot water after it introduced several new specialty channels in 1995 using negative option billing. Under this deal, customers received the new package to preview for free, then they would have to contact the company if they didn't want the package. If they didn't contact Rogers, they would automatically be billed for the services. Rogers had also repackaged its channels so customers would have to pay extra for channels they were already receiving. Rogers backed down on this deal after many customers complained. Vision.com of Ottawa, a consortium of cable companies, will also promote the new stations with an ad campaign. It will be created by In-House Advertising of Edmonton. The new Canadian channels are: The Comedy Network, Headline Sports, History Television, Home & Garden Television, Outdoor Life, Prime TV, Space: The Imagination Station, Teletoon and Treehouse TV. The new U.S. channels are: Black Entertainment Television, CNBC, Food Network, The Golf Channel and Speedvision. Rogers will also offer CTV's News 1 headline news station with its basic cable package.