THOMASVILLE — CNS customers will soon see an increase in their bills as the City of Thomasville prepares to give final approval of its new rates.

Thomasville City Council held a first reading and gave tentative approval of the rates at its Monday meeting. This increase is a difference of $2 to $6, depending on the package (see box).

Lynn Williams, assistant city manager of customer service, said CNS has “a little more than 17,000 cable customers” in its five city coverage area: Moultrie, Cairo, Camilla, Pelham and Thomasville.

Each city sets its own rates.

The only utilities increase in fiscal year 2009 is for the CNS cable service, due to rising programing costs.

The council and staff discussed the item in workshop prior to its Monday meeting.

“Programing expenses do drive rates and we don’t get hit with rate increases all at one time, programmers have their own schedules,” City Manager Steve Sykes said. “Based on the last three or four years we know about what to anticipate for rate increases. We’ve made some assumptions, but have set rates at what seems to be consistent with what we have seen in the last few years.”

Williams said CNS has agreements with all the programs it carries. CNS is billed every month for the right to carry the programs and it pays a monthly fee for each subscriber who receives the program.

Councilman Roy Campbell said he knew the city could not disclose what it was being charged for each station, but he was “shocked at how much we are paying for ESPN.”

The city cannot disclose fees from these programmers because a confidentiality clause is part of the agreements it signs with them, city staff said.

A local resident, who attended the workshop and meeting, asked if the city was a member of an association of broadcasters because that could help it with programming costs.

Williams said the city is not a member of that association, but is a member of an association that negotiates together, but this will not help with local programmers.

Natalie Connell, city communications officer, said CNS is a member of the National Cable Television Cooperative, which represents more than 1,100 independent cable providers.

Also, for the first time, the city has to pay all over-the-air channels such as WCTV and WALB a per subscriber fee.

Sykes said territories are established by the Federal Communications Commission, meaning the city does not have a choice in local network affiliates; it cannot shop for the best price, but has to go with the local station.

Staff said the city and programmers can do “in good faith” negotiations — meaning the station cannot just provide one offer to the city — but that does not mean it has to accept the city’s counteroffer.

“We make an offer to them and they have to respond,” City Attorney Will Sanders said. “They can say, ‘thanks, but no thanks.’”

Sykes said the city does not have to carry these stations on its cable system, but until it got to the point when customers were not willing to pay for the channels, that would likely not be an option.

“That is not something to take lightly,” he said. “Viewers depend on those channels.”

Williams said programmers also will not allow providers to have “a la carte” options, or, have customers choose from a menu to select only the programs they want.

The upcoming digital television conversion was also addressed.

Williams said only customers who get signals over the air (antenna) will be affected by the digital transition. CNS will receive the digital signal and send it out as analog to its cable customers.

Final approval will be given during the Jan. 21 meeting, moved from Jan. 26 because of a state council conference. Once given, these rates will go into effect March 1.

“This will give us enough to continue to provide the service and pay the margin of debt we owe,” Sykes said.