MOUNT VERNON — Digital cable subscribers will need to reprogram their thinking caps when Time Warner Cable realigns its channel lineups later this month.
“It’s all genre-based,” said Patrick McCauley, communications manager for Time Warner. “Channels above 100 will be arranged by theme giving customers easy access to the type of program they are looking for.”
More than 20 different categories have been created, dividing traditional cable networks into packages Time Warner said its customers have been asking for.
“We conducted research and found this is what our customers wanted. We are glad to be able to offer it now,” McCauley said.
The switch will take place Thursday, Oct. 22, and McCauley expects the transition to be “seamless.”
“We don’t anticipate any problems,” McCauley said. “If you do find you are having trouble, a simple reboot by unplugging and plugging back in of your box should solve the problem.”
While the basic and standard serves provided by Time Warner will not change, some channels will be duplicated in the digital categories.
The only programming note McCauley mentioned was MTV2 will be moved to the digital package and Versus will move from channel 70 to 69.
In addition to providing individual categories, McCauley said the change was implemented to place all Time Warner customers in Ohio on the same channel set up.
“We wanted to get the lineup consistent through the central Ohio region,” he said.
For those with an HD converter box, the new line up actually makes channel surfing easier.
“Customers simply add a ‘1’ to the digital channel number to find the HD version,” he said.
Customers will find information regarding the channel changes in billing statements, direct mail and advertisements in the Mount Vernon News, McCauley said.
These changes will not affect the television guides published daily in the News.