Adelphia Would Consider Reinstating Sex Channels

Adelphia Communications, the largest cable provider in Los Angeles and Southern California, said Monday that it would consider reinstating pay-per-view sex channels on its systems here if city regulators ask it to do so.

Taking the moral high ground, Adelphia is in the process of dropping the Spice channel from cable systems it acquired last year from Century Communications. The purchase gave Adelphia about 1.2 million subscribers from Eagle Rock west to Santa Monica and south to Orange County.

Though the company would not comment for a story on its actions that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday, it issued a statement Monday responding to the front-page article.

“Should the franchise authorities from those communities in which Adelphia operates approach us with requests for reinstatement of adult programming, we would naturally take those requests seriously,” said the company, which is owned by the Rigas family in conservative Coudersport, Pa.

Adelphia is the only one of the nation’s seven major cable operators with a policy against carrying channels devoted solely to adult programming. Other cable operators have been adding new channels of the highly profitable adult programming.

Adelphia said in its statement that the demand for adult fare is not high enough to warrant dedicating an entire channel to the genre.

“There are several dozen programming services vying for carriage by cable operators,” said the statement. “The amount of revenue generated for a cable operator by adult programming services is a small fraction of the revenue potential from other premium cable services.”

City regulators say Adelphia is within its rights to drop Spice. Los Angeles’ Information Technology Agency, which issues franchises, requires cable operators to carry certain categories of programming. Adult programming is not among the requirements.