Kahoka Cable Customers—Are You Willing To Pay More To Keep WGEM, FOX?

The City of Kahoka’s cable system is facing the choice of disconnecting three popular channels or raising rates, and they want public input.

Unless a contract agreement can be reached with Quincy Newspapers, Inc, the owners of WGEM Channel 10, The CW Channel 45, and CGEM Fox 64, the Kahoka Cable system will have to drop those channels from their lineup at 11:59 pm on December 31.

“Most every year, every channel has a rate increase of 4-6 percent,” said Cable Supervisor Scott Goben. “Their request is a lot higher than that.”

While no figures have been disclosed, it was reported at the November 14 meeting of the Kahoka Board of Aldermen that QNI was seeking a 330 percent increase.

“It would be a three year contract, with an increase each year,” said Mayor Wayne Blum

“What bothers me is that we receive their signal out of the air, and we enhance it for our system, and they want us to pay for that. But if you have an antenna, it’s free,” Blum said. “And, if we agree to pay it, we know that when the contracts for Channels 3 and 7 come up, they’ll want an increase, too.”

“What we need to know is if our subscribers would remain subscribers if we lost those three channels,” said Goben.

“If we do keep them, we will have to raise rates,” said Blum. “And then we will not be as competitive with Dish customers.”

On a related subject, as of January 1, Kahoka Cable will no longer be able to carry KYOU FOX 15 from Ottumwa. That decision was made by FOX, as Kahoka is not located in Ottumwa’s designated market area. Kahoka is in the Quincy, Hannibal and Keokuk market area.

Unless an agreement with QNI is reached, there will be no FOX TV station on Kahoka Cable, meaning subscribers would not get to see the Super Bowl or World Series next year.

“We want some guidance which way to go,” said Blum.

Please call City Hall at 727-3711 with your comments.