Tci

The wrong birds won the pennant, again.General Aidid made General Cedras' antics possible, in case no one had noticed.Merging Bell Atlantic with TCI gives one corporation control of every signal going in and out of your house. Bring back semaphore.Cheer up. The Postal Service is getting a new logo.

The City Council wants cable television subscribers in Annapolis to get Home Team Sports (HTS) and ESPN2 as part of their basic package. But TCI Cablevision, which has a contract ++ to provide service in the city, is balking.TCI General Manager William J. Forest said it is illegal for the council to alter the basic cable package unilaterally and that the cable company will sue if those changes are approved."We think the city should survey cable subscribers to see if ESPN2 and Home Team Sports are indeed what they want," he said.

Like a jilted bridegroom who is secretly relieved, Bell Atlantic Corp. expressed deep regret yesterday at the failure of itsmerger talks with the nation's largest cable television operator, all the while looking to a bright future.Bell Atlantic, whose territory includes Maryland, made it clear that the termination of the $30 billion deal with Tele-Communications Inc. would not stand in the way of its plans to become a national player in advanced communications services, including long distance.

City cable subscribers got a double dose of good news yesterday, as TCI, the local franchiser, reached agreement with ESPN2 to not only pick up the signal of tomorrow's Grey Cup (5:30 p.m.), but also to add the 2-year-old channel to its lineup.The CFL championship game, involving the Baltimore Stallions and the Calgary Stampeders, will be made available to the 110,000 subscribers on the system's channel 43, a vacant channel, for a second straight year.ESPN officials permitted TCI to carry two Baltimore postseason games last year, even though the system didn't offer ESPN2 on its channel roster.

A 1993 incident in which more than 20 black employees of Baltimore's cable television system were herded into a room for interrogation by white investigators in the presence of armed guards is at the center of a series of lawsuits filed yesterday against Tele-Communications Inc., the nation's largest cable operator.The incident took place on the same day the black president of United Artists Cable of Baltimore was at TCI's office in Bethesda being fired by his white supervisor.These two incidents, coupled with other recent dismissals or demotions of blacks at other TCI properties, led to the filing yesterday of three lawsuits against the giant cable television operator seeking damages estimated at more than $1 billion.

Annapolis and South County residents could be watching town-hall-type discussions and Board of Education and County Council meetings on local cable television, if some members of city council have their way.At a public hearing today, the city council will examine whether to transfer local cable television operation from Tele-Communications Inc. to Jones Intercable Inc.Alderman Carl O. Snowden, a Ward 5 Democrat, said he expects that the council will vote...

After more than a year of negotiations, Annapolis officials thought they had reached a franchise agreement with TCI Cablevision.But when the agreement was presented at a public hearing last night, the cable company's representative surprised city officials by telling them that the document was incomplete and unsatisfactory.The representative, William J. Forest, said the document did not reflect the latest changes his company had agreed to at a December meeting."As far as I'm concerned, we were still in a negotiation process," Mr. Forest said.

Denver -- Cable television was a little-known luxury in 1952, when part-time cattle rancher Bob Magness sold part of his herd to raise money to build a community system in Memphis, Texas.The service quickly became a hit in the farm town by relaying broadcast signals that were too weak to be picked up by conventional antennas. But, more important, it marked the birth of an enterprise that over the next four decades has become one of the biggest -- and some say most feared -- media powers in the United States.

To hear AT&T and TCI tell it, their $48 billion merger will allow millions of customers to get convenient one-stop shopping for virtually all telecommunications services, from long distance calling to cable TV to high-speed Internet access.Industry analysts generally agreed that the union of the two communications giants is likely to improve convenience and choice for consumers, and might lower costs for some services.However, the analysts say the development of such an ambitious array of offerings could turn out to be more difficult than either company is letting on.AT&T Corp.