THE SPECTATOR ON SUDDENLINK AND THE COMMUNITY CHANNEL

  

For those of you who get your television service through Suddenlink Communications in Brenham, you may have noticed that the Brenham Community Channel disappeared last week.  That’s the channel that carried the audio of KWHI 1280, and was originally channel 10 on the cable system.  A couple of years ago Suddenlink moved the Community Channel to channels 95 and 96, and put a Spanish language television station on channel 10.  Then last summer Suddenlink removed the Community Channel completely, only to quickly restore it after numerous complaints from their customers.  Officials with the company originally told KWHI that the equipment for the channel was failing and the corporate office had no plans to replace it.  We offered to purchase new equipment for the channel, and even to lease the channel from Suddenlink in order to continue to serve the community through KWHI’s audio and public service announcements on the screen.  But we were then told that channels 95 and 96 were needed to carry additional television stations out of Houston.

Sadly, that is not the message being told to Suddenlink customers who complain about not being able to listen to KWHI through their television.  One customer called us and said they were told that KWHI needed to replace some of our aging equipment, and refused to do so.  Another customer complaining to Suddenlink was even told she could get KWHI’s audio by paying $45 a month for the cable company’s internet service.

The Community Channel has been a part of the Brenham cable system since it was built in 1970 by my grandfather, Tom S. Whitehead Sr.  It has been a source of community information not only through KWHI’s audio, but through a variety of visual means.  It started with a camera panning back and forth across weather gauges, with Polaroid pictures of newsworthy events in between.  The equipment was later updated to a digital weather readout alternated with photos.  And as the ultimate community channel, the late Prentice Mearns worked with Beverly England to produce hourly five-minute local newscasts on channel 10.

Suddenlink officials have said that community channels are outdated…and no longer needed due to the internet.  I’m guessing they never visited the nursing homes, or the hospital, or any of the hundreds of kitchens or living rooms in Brenham that were tuned to their community channel to hear KWHI’s local newscasts, Texas Polka Time, the Country Store…or even Rush Limbaugh.

If you want to complain to Suddenlink about the loss of the Brenham Community Channel, you’ll have to do that in person…because they no longer have a local phone number you can call.  Community is missing alright…in more ways than one.  And that’s the way it looks to this Spectator.

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4 Comments

  1. Thank you Mr. Whitehead for backing up Suddenlink customers on this issue. I have been a cable customer for as long as it has been in our city from way back when and seems like as they become larger in the corporate world, our wants from small town America are no longer important to them. This is so very sad and all I can do is voice my opinion and hope it matters.

  2. We’ve never used Suddenlink, and we obviously never will. If you don’t listen to your local customers, you’ll soon find out that you don’t HAVE any local customers.

  3. Just say NO. If enough people leave Suddenlink, the channel might suddenly become relevant again.

  4. These type of leftist attacks to stop people from listening to good conservative radio has to end. It is time to Suddenlink to realize that they are here to serve us. People of Brenham, it is time to rise and show Suddenlink that their dirty bag of large “Corporate America” tricks don’t belong is small town Texas.

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