New Digital Channel Lineup Changes for TWC Carolinas Customers

Mar 30 2010

New Digital Channel Lineup Changes for TWC Carolinas Customers

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to get up from my TV, go to my computer and search for a channel lineup page just to find the programming I wanted — and then had to ferret around some more to find the HD version of the channel I wanted in the first place. When I’m visiting friends or family who also have Time Warner Cable, forget it — everything’s all mixed up all over again.

A new project by Time Warner Cable Carolinas will help eliminate all that hassle for our Carolinas customers, with no more guessing. We’re starting to roll it out today in parts of Charlotte.

Right now, we have several different versions of our lineup throughout North and South Carolina, but soon we’ll have a ‘Common Digital Lineup’.

What “Common Digital Lineup” means is that all channels will be located in the same place on your lineup throughout both states. To make it even easier to find the channels you want, all your channels will be grouped together by category.

For example, kids’ programming will all be in the 200’s and sports will be located in the 500’s.

By rearranging your programming by theme, we are hoping that the types of shows you like to watch will be easier to find because they are all grouped together. Here’s what it looks like:

• 100s- Local Broadcasters & Local Programming
• 200s- Kids & Family, Learning & Discovery, Faith & Inspiration
• 300s- Entertainment, Home & Leisure, Shopping
• 400s- News & Information, Music
• 500s- Sports
• 600s- Movies
• 700s- Premiums, PPV & Events
• 800s- International
• 900s- Music Choice
• 1000s- On Demand
• 1100 and above- High Definition

And, for those channels offered in HD, all you have to do is put a ‘1’ in front of the ordinary channel number to get to the HD channel. For example, you’ll find ESPN on channel 500 and the HD version on 1500.

You may have seen something in the news about this – here’s our own Melissa Buscher explaining it on North Carolina’s News 14.

A complete look at the category based lineup for Charlotte can be found here (PDF). You may want to print out a few to keep near your TV as a reference while you’re adjusting to the new channel lineup.

It will take about 3 months for us to roll this out in all the areas we serve in North and South Carolina. To find out when the TV channel lineup will change in your specific community, click here:
Rollout Plan for Carolinas Category-based Digital Lineup

If you have any additional questions, you may want to try the FAQs on our website. We’ll update this post with news you can use as you navigate your new lineup.

We’re trying to make this as simple and easy for our customers as we can. We know it’s a real pain to have to re-learn cable channels all over again. But hopefully this is the last time Carolinas customers will have to do it — we want this to be a structure and an orderly, logical way to find television programming as easily as possible.

But you tell us – are you having a hard time navigating the new lineup? Do you have a question that’s not covered in the FAQs? Let me know here, and I’ll try and address as many as I can either in the comments or in a future post.

Categories: Carolinas, Cool Stuff, Product Launches, TWC on TV, What's New

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10 Responses to “New Digital Channel Lineup Changes for TWC Carolinas Customers”

3DTV Informer
Apr 09, 2010
at 11:05 pm

liked this article!
HENRY WILSON
Apr 12, 2010
at 3:28 pm

WHY IS THE NEW CHARLOTTE TWC LINEUP NOT AVAILABLE ON TWC WEBSITE. IT IS SHOWING THE OLD LINEUP?
John Fullagar
May 12, 2010
at 6:23 am

I live in the Myrtle Beach area of South Carolina. Been a TWC and Road Runner customer for over 10 years. I recently “bundled” my TWC service to include digital phone which was a BIG MISTAKE. . Trust me on this: Do not use TWC phone service…period. When your cable goes out, for whatever reason, your phone service goes out also. At least with another phone carrier you can use dial-up on your computer…but that isn’t possible if you have TWC phone service.
R. Willey
May 15, 2010
at 7:05 pm

I was informed by TWC today that the “Sort by Favorites” function was removed because some people would use the function and then call TWC to complain when a new channel was added and they were not receiving it because the new channel had not been added to their favorites list. Because of all the channels out there including low def channels and all the others I do not receive the “Sort by Favorites” was the only feature that made the system manageable. The “sort by favorites” setting should be returned and even improved on so that it functions by using the guide or by simply channel surfing.
Annoyed
Jun 01, 2010
at 1:06 pm

I would like to know what happened to the option to view the guide by Favorites?????????????? The “Favorites” function is now totally useless and i have to look at every channel on the guide just to see the 25% that i care about. Give us back our Favorites First Function!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I assume that’s the same as the above-mentioned “Sort by Favorites”)
Jack
Jun 05, 2010
at 4:14 am

I agree with R. Willey and Annoyed,

Navigator’s “Sort By Favorites” was an excellent way to organize customer’s Favorite Channels according to their own personal preferences. It allowed great flexibility for them to see the channels that they cared about the most, presented first in the guide’s time grid.

R. Willey, thank you for sharing the explanation for its removal, although I think in the case of customers’ concerns about that feature, it should have been explained that when new channels are added, favorite channels most of the time change positions and need to be re-programmed. But it is super easy to do! You just go to Settings and to Your Favorite Channels. After that, you can either scroll to the channel that you want to make a Favorite, or just press the numbers of the channel that you want to get to:

If the channel that is highlighted has no star beside it, pressing SELECT makes it a Favorite Channel. If the channel highlighted has a star beside it, pressing SELECT removes that channel from the Favorites List. You can than Press (C) to Save your Changes.

I heard that Sort By Favorites is coming back with a new feature called Guide Filtering. Guide Filtering will allow us to sort channels by Favorites, HD Channels, Subscribed Channels according to a customer’s preference. What is sad is that TWC never tells us when updates to the boxes are coming or what features to expect, or even a time frame for them. There is such disparity from all the different boxes and divisions that ranges could be anywhere from a month away, three months away, six months away, a year, us subs are never given that information. Sometimes you’ll get a call voice mail the night before an update, but even that is a 50/50 shot because some divisions do a better job with relaying information than others.

I heard that Sort by Favorites was removed to make way for Guide Filtering. But the mystery is why remove a feature when it may be a long, long time before a new feature is added? TWC should have kept Sort By Favorites as a Guide option. Than, if and when Guide Filtering rolls out in each division, improve on Sort By Favorites, by adding Guide Filtering. But don’t remove Sort By Favorites until Guide Filtering is ready to be added to the boxes and the divisions in question.

Jack
JOSEPHINE
Jun 21, 2010
at 1:30 pm

IS THERE A CHART AVAILABLE INDICATING FROM OLD CHANNEL TO NEW CHANNEL BY NUMERS AND LETTERS.THANK YOU
Ben
Jul 04, 2010
at 5:03 am

Why aren’t other divisions doing this with their lineups? In Central New York, our channel lineup is a disaster. The channels are all over the place! If I want Food Network I have to go to analog channel 39, the HD version is 827 and the VOD version is buried in some other menu! The satellite companies have it right. Locals are 1-100 and then a consistent line up throughout. DirecTV has the best channel alighnment out there.

Also, what’s with taking so long to add channels? In our division we are still without the Viacom HD networks even though other areas have them and a carriage agreement has been in place for over a year! We are on an SDV system so the room is there.
Sara
Jul 10, 2010
at 7:23 pm

This is awful!!!! I do not want to scroll through the WHOLE GUIDE just to see my favorites! I don’t like hitting the favorite button over and over… it’s so much easier to page up and down through my favorites!!!

This was NOT good choice on your part… please change it back or make it so you can scroll through favorites again!
Jack
Jul 11, 2010
at 5:10 pm

I agree with Sara about the removal of Sort by Favorites. This feature really needs to be reinstated to the boxes! My first Navigator wish is Keyword search!

Keyword Search for Navigator’s keyboard, is one thing that I have been waiting for, going on three years! It’s way too tedious to have the keyboard return titles only, especially the nightmare that this is for trying to find sports teams using the keyboard. (I have posted before about this frustration.)

I would give anything to be able to type “Packers” into the keyboard and get a list of Packer Football Games, type “Brewers” on the keyboard and get a list of Brewer Baseball Games. Type “Al Pachino” and get a list from the keyboard of all Al Pachino movies. It’s just insane that what is supposed to be a 2010 and beyond guide,lacks a keyword search feature.

To be honest, I would rather see TWC update the guide with basic features like Keyword Search and Guide Filtering now, rather than do things like adding 3D channels, or more Start Over Channels. Give customers keyword search first to simplify the Navigator search experience. Keyword Search has been my most requested “Gator” feature for many years, Second to that would be Guide Filtering.

I love the Series Manager! I think it is better than Tivo!

Jack