Channel change irks fans

Time Warner Cable customer Dusty McCraven of Raleigh was unpleasantly surprised recently when he turned on the Travel Channel to watch "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations" and got the Noggin channel instead.

"It's, like, way lowbrow children's stuff," he says.

So he called Time Warner Cable to find out what gives. He was told that Travel Channel had been moved from channel 74 to digital channel 152.

That means that McCraven, who subscribes to the 76-channel standard package for about $50 a month, will now have to get a digital tier for an additional $15 if he wants to continue watching one of his favorite shows.

"I was right in the middle of the new season and then -- cut off," he says.

McCraven's friend Todd Morman, host of the community-access cable television show "Monkey Time," is also a Bourdain fan, and he's furious with Time Warner Cable, too.

"We don't even have any choice in this," he says. "It just makes us feel really at their mercy, and that they don't even care."

He says Time Warner Cable should have provided adequate warning.

"They should have something scrolling along the bottom, so that people who are fans of a given show have at least one chance to find out the show is migrating to another channel," he says.

Brad Phillips, vice president for government and public affairs at Time Warner Cable, explains that niche channels such as ESPN Classic and The Travel Channel were moved to the digital tier where they could be more effectively packaged.

"We look at viewership," says Phillips. "We look at the price, the cost of the programming."

The move puts Travel Channel in the neighborhood of Fine Living Network and Do It Yourself Network on the digital tier, and former digital tier channels VH1 Classic and Noggin on the standard tier.

"We received a few e-mails from customers across the division," Phillips says when asked about customers' reaction. "They're not necessarily upset that it moved, but they want to know where it went. We could have done a better job notifying customers of the change."

Phillips says that customers were alerted to the changes beforehand on their cable bills, which directs them to www.timewarnercable.com/nc for further information.

Phillips says that Time Warner also ran a crawl on the Weather Channel to announce programming changes, and ran a legal notice in The News & Observer.

Time Warner is running a promotion that offers free digital service to standard customers for six months, after which the $15-a-month charge will be applied.

Travel Channel is also available in the Triangle on DirecTV and Dish Network.

A nose for music

North Carolinians may have been disappointed to see Fayetteville's Patricia Mizen cut from SoapNet's "I Wanna Be a Soap Star" last Tuesday, but a Chapel Hill scientist made us all proud on the "Letterman" show last week by proving everyone's a winner.

David Bruckenstein, Ph.D., co-founder of KZE PharmAssociates at Research Triangle Park, was in the audience for CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" Thursday.

The occasion was worth noting for two reasons. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton was Letterman's guest for most of the hour. And before that, Bruckenstein played the harmonica with his nose for Letterman's audience at New York's Ed Sullivan Theater and for millions of viewers at home.

It happened during the "Show and Tell" segment near the beginning of the show.

Letterman called Bruckenstein's name as the first audience member to demonstrate his talent, and Bruckenstein introduced himself as a scientist.

"Really -- a scientist?" Letterman said, while shaking Bruckenstein's hand. "Honest to God, I've never met a scientist." Letterman also noted his familiarity with Chapel Hill and the Research Triangle.

Bruckenstein then proceeded to play "Home on the Range" -- supposedly, a Letterman favorite -- on the harmonica with his left nostril, as he blocked his right nostril with an index finger.

The unaccompanied performance (Bruckenstein declined any help from Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra) was flawless.

"Now that is a man of science!" Letterman exclaimed as the audience applauded. "You, sir, are a genius."

A clip of Bruckenstein's performance may be available at www.cbs.com/latenight/ lateshow.