Opinion: Blacked out of the Prop. 8 debate on basic cable

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With my pen and notebook, I was all ready for 9 a.m.

The California Channel would be broadcasting one of the most important events in the state’s judicial history: the arguments in front of the state Supreme Court over Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban.

The California Channel is the C-SPAN of California government, carrying the big events of governance, and they rarely get bigger than this.

But I couldn’t watch it. My Time Warner cable service doesn’t carry the California Channel.

I have basic cable. I’ve done without Turner Classic Movies and other great channels such as BBC America because I don’t want to pay a premium price for them. Instead, I get a lot of dopey infomercial channels I don’t watch.

But this is civics. The California Channel should be required for basic cable.

The evening before, I’d spent something like 15 minutes on the phone with Time Warner, mostly on hold, trying to figure it out. The customer rep on the other end had never heard of the California Channel. So I went to the California Channel Web site, which showed me that I could watch it on channel 10,233. I don’t get a channel 233 and, channel 10 is a blue blank on my screen.

As for watching on the California Channel Web site itself, it isn’t used to so much demand and warned me in advance -- correctly, as it turned out -- that I might not be able to watch there.

So 9 a.m. came and went, and in the highest-tech state on the map, home to Silicon Valley, I can’t watch this most vital event. My cable company doesn’t think it’s as important as an infomercial -- run on two channels -- on snapping up foreclosed houses for a song. Or even the blue blank on channel 10.

Shame on you, Time Warner cable. And Public Utilities Commission, are you listening? I say listening because, if you have basic cable, you’re sure not watching.